The Green Knight
by wryter501
Summary: Futuristic dystopia a/u. Merlin discovers he's one of a group of people who can miraculously cause green things to grow in a world ravaged by the fallout of war. Arthur is the heir to the militaristic corporation that has enslaved these Green Knights, and Merlin's arrival at their base of operations to find his father raises questions for everyone... No slash, adapted original.
1. Yelder's Hollow

**The Green Knight**

**Prologue –Ten Years Ago**

"No, you don't, Merlin! Not so fast – get back in here. And sit back down."

He padded, barefoot and disconsolate, back to his chair. Not so fast – _not fast enough,_ he thought to himself. Should have left the last two bites on his plate at the table and skedaddled when the old man took his mother's breakfast tray up the creaky wooden stairs in the first place.

Gaius gave him a sternly-raised eyebrow as he came down the last two steps from the staircase that led to the loft room overhead, and began clearing the last of breakfast dishes from the plank table.

Merlin regretted even the temporary loss of freedom, but treasured his brief glimpse of the world from the front door of his home. Sunrise-streaked blue above, thick green foliage just burnished with the start of autumn below. Dust-brown town, downhill in the center of the holler, yellow fields spreading and rising around – it reminded him of how he used to build with twigs and stones in the saggy center of his mother's bed in the loft, atop the square patches of the faded quilt.

"We're still starting school today?" he asked, drawing his feet up into the seat of the slat-backed chair, til the old man noticed and scolded him to better posture. "But Mama's sick."

"I know your mama's sick," Gaius said, stacking the dishes in the sink to wash later, and chasing Puff the lean black cat down from a curious and greedy perch on the counter. "That's why I'm going to be your teacher."

Merlin didn't ask, _just for today_. He was afraid he already knew the answer, deep down, and didn't want to hear it said out loud. He said instead, hopefully, "History?"

Always so much more interesting than mathematics or spelling or penmanship – especially if Gaius was going to teach.

The old man hesitated at the sink, one hand draped over the water pump, gazing out the small smeary window, past the plain limp curtain. Up the ridge, that view went, treetops and sky; he knew because the window's twin was next to him, over the table.

"Your mama prefers other subjects, you know that," Gaius said.

"Please?"

When the old man didn't respond with an outright negative, Merlin skipped down from his chair and chose the biggest book from the crooked shelf behind the door; it covered him collarbones to hipbones as he clutched it to his chest. Careful of the shiny thick-paper dust-cover, he brought it to the table, making sure there were no toast-crumbs or butter- or jam-smears. He wiped one such surreptitiously with the cuff of his long-sleeved work-shirt, made from the same light-blue material as Gaius's by his mother earlier that year, sitting up in bed to sew by the sunshine falling through the sky-light.

Laying the old man's most prized possession on the table, he suggested, "What about just geography, then?" Because that topic usually led into stories from history…

Gaius turned just his head to give Merlin a look – _you're not as sly or clever as you think you are, young man_ – but his eyes dropped to the book also.

"That geography's three hundred years out of date," Gaius warned, but came to straddle his own chair at the table, seating his old man's bulk heavily. He was looking at the double-page spread upside-down from that position, but it didn't make any difference to his memory or ability to instruct. "This is the map of the states during our first Civil War," he began. "Along the east coast here – mostly Virginia." His stubby forefinger nearly covered the delicate lines bordering the state. "Gettysburg, in Pennsylvania. Atlanta, Georgia. Some even way out here to Missouri and Kansas."

Merlin repeated the names to himself, following the progress of the instructive finger. "Will we ever go there, Gaius?" he asked.

The old man sighed. "No, boy, not likely. It takes far too long to go on foot or horseback, far too expensive to go by train or motor vehicle. Not just for sight-seeing." The lines in his face and the shadows in his eyes seemed to deepen. "Not when there's nothing left to see."

"There's the ocean, isn't there?" he asked, touching the tiny spidery white script on the field of blue. Atlantic Ocean. An expanse even bigger than the land, if the map was true; he tried to picture the ridges and valley of his home as waves, and couldn't comprehend it.

"Yes, I suppose. Though it should have swallowed this all up before the Collapse…" Gaius trailed off, shaking his head. "Death toll would have been about the same."

"The Collapse?" Merlin said, feeling a delicious shiver at the idea.

"Wall Street. The stock market, the national debt. Economics. This all goes right over your head, doesn't it, boy? You've never even seen a computer."

"Yes, but…" Maybe he didn't understand why the fighting started, but fighting was always exciting. "Then what?"

Gaius reached across to rub his fingers through Merlin's hair. "Those cities you see here on this map – New York and Boston and Baltimore, Richmond and Atlanta… D.C. They aren't there anymore, it's just… wreckage. Cities, especially the big ones, just tore themselves apart from the inside. Too many people, not enough food and water. No one left who knew how to _do_ with their own two hands anymore. Despair and destruction…" This time Gaius rubbed his hand over his own head, long white hair tied back in a queue at his nape. "Florida's still there, though the panhandle's been abandoned to Gulf hurricanes. I heard a while back they built a wall to cut off the rest of the continent. Mainly fish and fruit out of there, now. You know these five, don't you?"

"The Great Lakes," Merlin said proudly, and then hoped Gaius wouldn't ask him to elaborate. Superior he knew, and Michigan, but otherwise…

"There's still some shipping, some factories up there," Gaius told him, moving his finger yet again. "Here in the deep south, it's rice and cotton and hemp again. Great plantations and thousands of workers living hand-to-mouth. City-states, like the very ancient history of Europe."

"Europe?" Merlin said.

"Another continent - it's not on that map. Neither are Alaska and Hawaii, the only two states not connected to another state."

"Where are they?" Merlin tucked his feet under him, leaning forward over the book on the table.

"Way out here, and up here. Sold off, both of them, forty years ago during the Collapse. Same as this strip of states up here on the northern border – they're a new province of Canada, now."

"What's over here?" Merlin asked, pointing without touching the glossy page. "Another ocean?"

"Yes, boy, the Pacific. This map doesn't show because we didn't have these states in Eighteen-Sixty, but there was California here – state-wide riots, and the only reason they didn't spread were the deserts of Nevada and Arizona. Hell on earth, they call it now, utterly lawless. Every time we get news, another man is trying to reclaim it – from the man before him, who'd been assassinated."

"Assin – what?"

"Never mind." Gaius's eyes twinkled at him, though there was something sad there, too. "Texas down here, probably the best of the bunch. They're tough down there, proud and self-sufficient."

"Is Texas a state?"

"It was. Their own country now, and tickled pink, the way I hear it. The rest of us… teeter-tottered, city to country. Balance of power shifted to farmland. Rich men lost everything, and illiterate farmers employed PhD's to spread manure and walk the bean-rows and milk cows."

"P-H-D's?" It seemed the longer Gaius taught him, the more questions Merlin had. Confusing, and fascinating.

"Never mind."

They both looked up at a thump-and-shuffle that sounded from the loft over their heads; Merlin twisted to look up the steep narrow stairway behind him. After a moment of anticipatory breath-holding, Merlin accepted his disappointment – Mama wasn't getting up, after all. Not now, and maybe not all day…

Gaius evidently didn't feel the same certainty; the unintentional interruption turned the course of his thoughts to lessons Merlin's mother would approve. He pushed up from the table and retrieved a sheet from the stack of paper on the highest shelf, and a charcoal pencil.

"Write small, now," he cautioned. "Start with your name and the date, then copy in your best handwriting, what I dictate to you."

Handwriting – his least favorite subject. With a small sigh, Merlin obeyed, but Gaius started again before he was ready.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal… that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights… That among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

"Slow down, Gaius, I can't write that fast," he said. "How do you spell endowed? Or un-al-eanble?"

The old man leaned in the doorway and stared down past the vegetable garden and the chicken coop, down into the holler. Maybe his mind wasn't set on handwriting, after all. "Just listen, then, and remember. 'That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.' "

It didn't sound nearly as interesting as fighting; as he spoke, Merlin leaned sideways to focus on Gaius's little herb-garden, on the table where it met the wall, a second tier of little clay pots on the windowsill just above.

"What does that mean?" he asked, when the old man trailed off.

"Wars and rumors of wars," Gaius said, "have plagued mankind since the beginning." For a moment he looked down at Puff, licking one forepaw daintily in the sunlight at the threshold, the tuft of white fur between her shoulder-blades nearly glowing in the shining rays, then held out one worn hand, with three fingers extended, folding them back as he spoke. "We fought to become a country, we fought to stay a country… and forty years ago, we simply fought to survive. Brother against brother, neighbor fighting neighbor. College-educated lawyers right alongside backwoods trappers that couldn't spell their own names. Farmers and factory workers and even men right off the boat that couldn't understand English."

Merlin wondered which of the three wars the old man was referring to.

"The right to self-determination, self-government. And such an illusion that turned out to be… The right to keep another man a slave… the Civil War not even a hundred years after the Revolutionary. Freedom we fought for, twice. In the Collapse… only _life_. But there's also liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…"

"You used to be a teacher, didn't you, Gaius?" Merlin asked, hoping to distract the old man from the dictation, and the rambling nonsense. "You taught history?"

The old man snorted. "How old do you think I am, boy? No, I never taught. I had one year of college, before the Collapse. What a waste. When no one learns from history, we're doomed to repeat it."

"Was Mama a teacher, then? Is that why I don't go to school in the holler like the other kids?"

"It's a ways for little legs to walk, especially in poor weather."

Merlin cocked his head, brushing fingertips across the droopy round leaves of a self-heal plant, tiny as the tip of his pinkie finger. Was that why he was always told _no_ when he asked to visit the town, to play with the others. Was it that his mama wasn't strong, or that Gaius was busy, or that he himself didn't truly want to try mingling with other children – fascinating to watch from above, a bit nerve-wracking to consider facing on level.

"I'm a year older than I was last year," he observed, "and the weather's fine. I go all the way up to the ridge by myself, and you don't worry."

"That's because if you get tired or fall, you can just roll back down and in through the door," Gaius said lightly, not turning from the doorway. "Merlin… Your mama took it hard when she lost your dad. She doesn't want to lose you, too."

He didn't argue how it was impossible for him to get lost in the holler. There were the ridges, east and west, that met in a high point to the north, and the gap with the road that led to the outside world at the south. So he couldn't even leave the holler, really, and if he couldn't figure directions by looking down at the buildings of the town, there was always the sun passing by overhead to whisper the time of day with its warm shower of rays.

"How'd she lose my dad?" he wondered.

He couldn't remember calling someone _Dad_; in his earliest memory he and his mother walked hand in hand through a bright hot blur and his mama kept stopping to look back. Maybe his dad had been walking behind them, and then suddenly wasn't there, lost.

"That is a story for another time, and one your mama should tell you, and not til you're older." Gaius turned back into the room, crossing to the table – where he froze in a stillness so unusual and unexpected that Merlin felt a little frightened, looking up into his face. "And _that_–" Merlin recognized the old man had forced his tone light – "is also why we school you here."

"Why?" Merlin followed his gaze to the tiny clay pots, the clumps of greenery now vibrant and overflowing. That sometimes happened when he wasn't paying attention, or when his feelings were strong, but he didn't understand why something that seemed as natural to him as growing greenery, caused such a reaction from Gaius and his mother.

"Because you're special. It's a gift – you're a gift – but it's secret because it's different, and sometimes people are scared of what's different. They don't try to understand. People can be selfish, too, they might want to take and use your gift for themselves."

"How?" Merlin said, puzzled and upset. "I can't give it away like we gave Puff to Mama, when she was a kitten. And… if people want me to grow something, they could just ask and I'll do it."

"Hm. Right over your head." Gaius ruffled Merlin's hair affectionately again.

"How'd I get it? Does anyone else have it?" Merlin said eagerly. He did so want at least one friend that was his own age, another boy. He loved his mama and Gaius and the trees and flowers and birds and squirrels and 'coons, but…

"Again, a story for your mother to tell another time," Gaius said, more sternly. "Are you finished with that dictation?"

Merlin shifted and kicked his feet restlessly. The breeze ruffled Puff's fur as she curled her tail around her toes and peered intently outside. It blew a smell of green and yellow in at the door, iridescent life he could almost see and he longed to plunge himself into it, out-of-doors.

"Let me see, what comes next," Gaius said to himself. "Merlin, I tell you what, old age is knocking at my door…" He turned to the bookshelf for another book, worn and the cover cracked at the edges from use. "I can't believe I've forgotten…"

Nothing was knocking at the door but life and the smell of earth and growing things, an excitement and a lure Merlin could not resist.

As his old teacher mumbled and ruffled dusty pages in the shadow behind the door, Merlin slipped to the floor, crossed on bare tip-toes, and exploded over the threshold in a silent sprint of delicious freedom.

**Chapter 1: Yelder's Hollow**

Merlin loved his holler. From the rocky-sharp ridges to the delicate dusty farmer's furrows. Through crisp-new spring, through the slow gasp of summer, through the busy thrill of harvest and the hard frosty chill of winter. Pine-needles to beet-tops, squirrel's nests to corn silos, foxes and wolves and lynxes… to sheep and cows and goats.

It was home. The structure of seasons, the certainty of reap and sow, the freedom of miles of steep hillside and rolling farmland. The familiarity of every gulley and glen and hedge; moon-cycles and constellations and bonfires and candle-lit windows in cold-weather darkness.

The shelter of low thick boughs and shallow caves, the provision of nuts and berries and roots, seeds and leaves, and occasionally the meat of fowl or creature. Occasionally a stolen armful of vegetables or a pilfered pocketful of tended fruit. Companionship, also - he was never alone, surrounded by the birds and shy wild beasts.

It was more than that. It was his family, too. He was teacher, mentor, guide. He saw, he learned, he understood the lifecycles of seasons that grew into years, and years that brimmed over a decade. He was trained in the art and duty and blessing of the vocation of husbandry by the earth itself, so it seemed to him. And he gave back also, as a parent himself, or an elder brother, or a trusted caretaker. Nurturing the entirety of Yelder's Hollow, from the tart wild elderberries and hazelnuts through the plowed and planted, to the fancifully delicate flowers and window herb-gardens.

He loved his holler and never felt the lack of more, thanks to Gaius. The old man's door and larder were always open, a spare garment or set of boots waiting whenever Merlin stopped over. Gaius cared for his few needs without complaint or request – and the even fewer needs of his mother, resting now permanently in an earthy bed, covered by years-growth of a grassy blanket. Merlin never thought of leaving, either.

Until one day he did.

Until two men invaded the territory he claimed as his own simply because no one else from the town had ever cared to trespass so high before. They came in the weird gray mist that lingered – dampening his clothes and sharpening the pine scent around him in an invigorating way - before sunrise melted it off, one early autumn morning. They were dressed all in black, both of them, even to their boots. Which said to Merlin, _strangers_, even before he saw their faces.

He watched them climb closer, approaching obliquely until they were within earshot, a stone's throw down the ridge-slope to the south of where he rested concealed in the middle branches of a tall prickly fir.

"What do you think, are we going to find what we're looking for?" said the smaller of the pair, fair-haired and soft-spoken, slumping onto a rock outcropping from the side of the hill.

The other was stouter and harder, middle-aged, his dark hair fading toward gray, the skin of his face sagging off his jaw. He lowered himself all the way to the ground, on a dry patch of last year's leaves. "It's a big place. The people seem… evasive, but not outright deceptive. They might _suspect_, but I doubt they know much more than they told us. That says to me, if there is one here, it's someone that knows how to hide."

_One_ made Merlin wonder, but _someone who knows how to hide_ send a chill of apprehension up his spine.

The smaller one grunted in reluctant agreement. "I think we gotta say though, there is one here. I mean, look around you – this ain't _natural_."

Merlin did as the older man was bidden, a bit confused – _everything_ was natural, around them.

"Not our guy, though. This one has been here years."

"D'ya think they stick together?" the younger one pressed his companion. "If there's one here, maybe Balinor came to hide with it, or maybe he's still on his way."

_Hide_, instinct whispered. Not from a sense of danger, but from a habit of secrecy. Merlin breathed in the smell of the earth – patient and resigned and expectant – as the breeze keened faintly through the branches and twigs, leaves and pine-needles around him, and calmed.

"Hard to say. If he knew of the place, maybe." The older man shifted his weight, making as if to rise, and the younger spoke again, with the attitude of someone trying to prolong a delay.

"Worth bringing more agents in, d'ya think? We could get some credit if we could catch this one, at least – it's been a while since anyone found a wild one."

_This one, wild one_… A black squirrel scampered halfway out on a limb just below him, flicking its tail indecisively. Noticing Merlin with a single eye in profile, noticing them – and they noticed nothing.

The older black-clad man stayed sitting. "We'll stay a few more days at least, keep an eye out to see if someone knows more than they're letting on. We've got samples proving it's none of the people in town, but there was that hermit and his boy to check out, still."

Merlin decided, Gaius could deal with the strangers. He was going to stay out here, where they'd never find or catch him.

"Besides," the speaker continued, "More of our men deployed here means less credit for you and me." He tilted his head meaningfully, and the younger one nodded knowingly. "Might send this one into deeper cover, take longer to find him – and you and I are stuck out here with the responsibility of mission success the whole time."

"You have a point," the younger man mused, scuffing carelessly at the ground with his professionally-made black boot. He watched his own action a moment before venturing, "D'ya think… these folk might bribe us to look the other way? Report nothing amiss – as long as we can't find Balinor here, of course," he added hastily, at his companion's answering scowl.

The older man twitched restlessly, rising to his feet in a series of moves that spoke of well-tuned muscles. "Possibly. But once they admit to their guardian angel–" he spat sarcastically – "bribery can be a tricky business. Violence can follow, if they're determined to protect their secret. And _that_ means, Pendragon sends more men for sure."

_Pendragon_? Merlin thought.

The younger made a noise of acknowledgement, pushing himself up off the rock to fall in behind his companion. They trudged off along the deer-path they'd been following, that angled obliquely past Merlin's tree toward the top of the ridge. Eyes on their footing just as often as their surroundings, and neither – it seemed to him – making any special effort to quiet.

Strangers, hunting not for meat or hide, but for – he could only assume – _him_. Why?

"Gaius might know," he remarked to the squirrel, who flirted his tail and marked him again with one beady eye.

He considered for a moment if his concern and curiosity was strong enough for a visit to his old friend - then swung himself around to the trunk to begin the climb down.

…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

It took Merlin almost an hour to make his way around the rim of the holler in the direction opposite to that taken by the strangers; it was reassuring to calculate that barring a change of mind, their current route and rate of passage would not bring them to Gaius's cabin that day. Barefoot steps were light and sure, stone and bracken and creek and needle-mat, brush and bramble connecting to his soles as though he moved with paw and claw like the other wild things of the high ridges.

All was quiet about Gaius's cabin.

The rows of corn and potatoes in the side garden, the clumps of tomatoes and cucumbers and melons, needed weeding. Needed watering. The poultry, loose and pecking throughout the dooryard, didn't scuttle nervously away, but came bobbing and muttering – hunger made them brave - to see if he intended to scatter a handful of feed.

Merlin clucked his tongue at them consolingly and stepped through, glancing about in case his first impression was wrong and Gaius was occupied with a quieter smaller task out-of-doors. No sign… but the ax was stuck in the chopping block next to a careless scatter of firewood beside the woodshed. Softly he moved up to the threshold, the door left open as it always was, unless the weather necessitated it shut tight against wet or cold.

Gaius slouched by the table, one foot – bootless and bandaged – propped up on the other chair. Even as the old man squinted up with a grunt of surprise to see whose shadow darkened his doorway, Merlin recognized the object Gaius whittled at in his lap. A long slender staff, tucked under one elbow as the old man formed the armpit support. A crutch.

"Wasn't expecting _you_," Gaius said. "Wasn't expecting anyone, but…"

"What happened?" Merlin said, padding inside and crouching next to the chair that supported Gaius's foot.

"Carelessness," the old man said, obviously disgusted with himself. "Chopping wood, and not paying attention. It's just a deep cut, and maybe a cracked bone in my foot. It's clean," he reassured Merlin's alarm. "The bleeding's stopping, and I've bound it with some of Jeannie's best ointment. Now that I've got this thing," he spun the crutch to thump on the worn floorboards, "it'll hardly even slow me down."

"Do you need me to–" Merlin began.

"Not really." The old man anticipated whatever he might offer with a tired, wry smile. "I could use a bit of company, though. Are you hungry? I dug a few new potatoes yesterday, there's bacon and some cheese."

"I could bake some flatbread," Merlin offered. "A week's supply, maybe?"

"That would be welcome…" The smile faded to a sharper look. "What brings you here specially, today?"

"Strangers in the holler."

Gaius straightened in the chair. "Strangers? From where?"

"They didn't say," Merlin told him. He didn't have to explain, it had been an overheard conversation; Gaius knew he kept his distance even from the familiar townspeople.

"What did they look like?"

Merlin described them – their clothing and their manner more important than anything else. "It sounded like… they were looking for me," he said hesitantly. "But I didn't think anyone but you and me… _knew_."

Gaius grunted in dissatisfaction, used his crutch to lever himself up from his chair, and crooked his finger. Merlin bounced up from his crouch and obeyed, picking up the abandoned chair and slowly following his old friend out to the yard, to a place where the shade would last, and the last two dozen yards of the trail to town were in view. The old man scrutinized the area, mainly downhill, balancing awkwardly til he was satisfied with their privacy; he couldn't _feel _it the way Merlin could, and so he simply waited.

"What else did they say?" Gaius demanded finally, and Merlin helped him settle to the chair.

"They said they were going to keep looking…" Merlin thought, trying to remember what else he hadn't understood at the time. "They were going to find us – the hermit and his boy, they said." Gaius grunted again. "They said they had samples proving none of the townspeople were what they were looking for."

Gaius's face wrinkled into a proper scowl, the likes of which Merlin hadn't seen in years. "How long do we have, do you think?" he said shortly.

Merlin shrugged. "They were moving slow and heading further northeast from where I was. Tomorrow, I think at the soonest, unless they get directions to the cabin from someone in town."

"They'd have come here first if they had that," Gaius decided. "We've got a little time… But you'll have to go somewhere else, at least for a while. Outside the holler, maybe months, maybe years. I wish I could come but this foot, right now… I'll come find you when it's safe for you to return."

"No," Merlin protested reflexively. "I don't want to go anywhere – I belong here. I'll just avoid them, I can do that – they'll never find me."

"It'll soon be too dangerous for you here, if they won't give up looking. And men like that, don't give up looking," Gaius warned, and cocked his head, fixing his next argument with one fierce eye – quite like the squirrel, himself. "It'll soon be too dangerous for me, too, if you don't leave. If they can't catch you, who do you think they'll threaten to make you turn yourself in? They can squeeze the town-people, too, and turn out an army of folks who find your capture in their best interests."

The way he said threaten, raised hairs on Merlin's arms. It made him think of a badger's growl, of a snake's rattle. It made him think of his mother's warnings in his childhood - _people are scared of what's different, people are selfish, they'll take and use your gift for themselves_… The ambiguity of _take_ and _use_ was intimidating enough, making himself scarce was starting to sound like a good idea. _Capture _made him feel sick to his stomach.

"But where would I go?" he asked blankly, thinking of the several views over the curved ridge, down to barren wilderness beyond, as far as the eye could see.

"I'll think of something," Gaius said, with determined stubbornness. "Bring me the map, some paper and a pencil."

Merlin obeyed again, and the old man bent grumbling to his task. Without other instruction, Merlin busied himself about the kitchen - scrubbing potatoes under the kitchen pump, stoking the stove's fire, frying bacon and kneading flatbread dough. He stepped outside to stack the firewood and hang the offending ax on its pair of nails on the wall in the woodshed, scatter the feed for the longsuffering chickens, and tend the garden. Guessing he probably wouldn't get another chance, he generously strengthened the plants that were weakened and spindly - knowing he didn't have to worry about notice or questions, here – drawing in life and nutrients from the soil and sunshine.

And, as the sun set and the line of shadow moved up the east ridge, Gaius gave up his vigil and his plans, and returned to the cabin to oversee dinner and the packing of Merlin's supplies – though Merlin kept the door open to keep an eye on the trail. He intended to disappear the moment there was any indication of company from town, strangers or otherwise.

Merlin didn't argue. If Gaius thought he was gone, and told the men so… wouldn't that be just as safe as if Merlin was actually gone? Maybe he could slip over the rim of the holler somewhere and find a place to hole up in for several weeks at least. Just to make sure those men didn't bring _more_, to hurt his friend and his home.

"Take one of the extra blankets and an oilskin, with some twine," Gaius said. "You can use that for a poncho or a tent, if it rains."

Merlin didn't remind him, he was out in all weather anyway, his only tent the low-sweeping boughs of an evergreen. And Gaius carried on listing out loud the other things they'd agreed he should take, some _after_ he'd already tucked the item inside.

"Soap and that flatbread. Sausage, the rest of the cheese, and some of those granola bars. The water canteen… what else…"

"Thank you," Merlin said only. He knew Gaius knew he could take care of himself – he always did – but it was oddly encouraging to have someone care enough to worry.

"Thank heavens I had new boots and a coat for you for the winter already," Gaius said, gesturing.

The boots slumped, unimpressive without feet to give them form, but the fur of the lining peeked out promisingly. The coat was heavy canvas, dark brown with carved-bone toggles. Merlin saw it had buttons at the cuffs to tighten them, pockets on the outside – he leaned forward to flip one lapel to check – and the inside, as well as a drawstring hood.

"You sure you didn't intend on wearing that yourself?" he said. The old man huffed and grumbled, and turned back to the stove. And, with the distraction of packing now over, Merlin sought a new conversational distraction. "Gaius, what's Pendragon?"

The old man froze in his position, weight balanced on his crutch, skillet and spoon in hand. For a moment the scent and sound of the salt pork, onions and peppers frying in bacon grease, relaxed Merlin with its lazy-homey-hungry normality, from the tension of the old man's expression, the expectation of departure and change.

Then Gaius sighed heavily, shoving the pan with the spoon propped in it to the back of the stove. He limped his way to the table, drawing himself up to look Merlin in the eye. Merlin met his friend's gaze uncomprehending, for one breath after another… and then something shifted; he was surprised to discover he was looking _down_ into the old man's gaze. The way Gaius's eyes measured him shoulder to shoulder made him faintly self-conscious, but when the old man sighed again more softly, and lowered himself to his seat, he wanted to apologize, though he had no idea what for.

"I suppose it's time for this, isn't it," Gaius said half to himself, rubbing a rough hand over his eyes and down his jaw with a rasp of unshaven whiskers. "You're grown. Whether you're ready, or not… Pendragon isn't a what, it's a who. Camelot is the name of a company up north, Pendragon's company. Started a few years after the collapse, to combat a growing problem of dwindling harvests throughout mid-America due to the toxic fallout from the fighting and the sorts of weapons used. Camelot is very nearly its own city-state now, very powerful, in a private-army and political-immunity kind of way. You remember our history lessons? Then you should know how important it was to what was left of our nation, that our farms and fields continued producing in sufficient quantities."

"I don't understand," Merlin said. "A company?"

"They formulated and produced fertilizer. The only fertilizer that effectively rejuvenated the land and brought productivity levels back up. I used to keep the newspapers for the articles more than advertising, but…" he shrugged. "Winter happens, and it makes good kindling."

"So they were good guys," Merlin concluded tentatively.

"At first, I think so, yes."

"But it doesn't make sense," he said gently, still sure that Gaius must be mistaken. "Two men coming from a fertilizer company? Why should anyone in the holler be afraid of that? Why is that a reason to leave?"

"Because it's Camelot," Gaius said.

Feeling a bit frustrated with his friend's habitual reticence, a bit restless with the sense of vague danger, Merlin moved back to the stove for the skillet, pulled out a drawer for two forks on his way back to the table. The bottom of the iron pan was still warm, though not hot enough anymore to worry about scorch marks on the wood surface of the table. "But what does this have to do with me?"

"You know, I first saw your mama in the general store down the valley," Gaius said, reaching with his fork to push the meat and vegetables around his side of the shared skillet, rather than helping himself as Merlin was doing, now seated. "Suitcase in one hand, a grubby little boy in the other, and a lost look on her face. I never had children, Merlin, but your mama was the closest thing to a daughter I could ever have hoped for."

"You mean Mama wasn't born and raised in the holler?" Merlin said, surprised. Maybe that faint old memory of walking and walking through heat-shimmer like a spring downpour had been real.

"Your mama came from up north," Gaius said. "Your daddy… worked for Camelot."

Merlin's fork hovered, forgotten. "What happened to him?" _Lost_, was the only explanation he'd ever heard.

Gaius sighed, his eyes on the skillet. "I remember you as a little squeaker, following me up the rows of the garden, up the ridge to the summit, and I'd turn and the green would follow you like the wake of a speedboat on a lake."

"A speedboat?" he said, feeling his face crinkle in confusion, but he wasn't really interested in the explanation of Gaius's phrase. "Never mind. What about my father?"

"I'm getting to that. Your gift is special, and unusual…" Merlin knew this, Gaius had said it countless times before. "When your mama and I cautioned you, folks might be frightened, folks might want to take it and use it… There were others like you. A long time ago."

Merlin wasn't hungry, anymore. The hollowness in his belly, so long ignored it had almost been forgotten, was filling, and maybe with hope.

"During and after the collapse, people said it was Armageddon," Gaius said. "The apocalypse. But… it wasn't the end. Even when the land itself seemed like it was dying, it wasn't the end. There were folks – one or two, scattered about, then more once stories started to spread and folks knew what to look for. Some said, prophets, or angels. Some said, gardeners or botanists. Miracle workers. Or just born with more than a green thumb… a green _heart_. Knights, they started calling them, though _why_ I'm not sure, they didn't fight… They didn't fight."

"But they were like me?" Merlin said. "Growing things? Making them strong and healthy just by wanting it so?"

"Camelot was founded – as I understand it, news got to be questionable and sporadic in those days – to make the blessing reach to as many people as possible, and restore the land. No one argued with that, everyone supported and applauded it. Ready to make sacrifices and allowances, for it to happen. And then… corruption happened. Advantages were taken. Camelot controlled the means of fertility, and sought others with the blessing more actively. Stopped taking no for an answer and just conscripted them – though no one dared say the word or oppose the measures – younger and younger. And then pretty soon it wasn't the person, him or herself, coming into town, nurturing the fields or orchards, but just regular Camelot employees with the fertilizer. Dry in bags to scatter, or concentrated liquid in drums to spray… worked as well or better, since no one had to wait on a single person for delays like eating or sleeping."

Merlin shivered, and glanced to the open doorway; no sunlight was left in the sky, where blue deepened without yet allowing starlight to show through. At least they could be fairly sure no one would be coming from town, anymore, the trail wasn't safe for anyone else, in the dark. Gaius scraped his chair back to rummage in the nearest drawer for a candle and matches. Merlin tried to swallow another bite, but it was cooling and the grease coated his tongue and clogged his throat. He stood to hold a tin cup under the kitchen pump, but even fresh spring water couldn't clear his esophagus or settle his stomach.

"You want to ask me, what happened to those with the gift, if the blessing could be manufactured," Gaius guessed, "but you don't quite dare. You sure you want me to keep going?"

Like constellations, the dots almost made a picture, and Merlin suspected it was an ugly one. But denying it wouldn't change it, or take him back to yesterday, when ignorance was bliss. He held Gaius's gaze, and nodded deliberately.

"The answer is, no one knows," Gaius admitted. "Your mama said, those workers never came home. Anyone who pushed for information or tried to inform other authorities found that bad luck of every kind dogged their steps. There haven't been published stories of any other miracle workers found, and we're all so dependent on Camelot's chemicals making our ground grow food we let them get on with however they're doing it."

_Very powerful, in a private army and political immunity kind of way._

"So…" he said slowly, "My mama didn't know. For sure. That my dad was… dead?" If he had simply never come home, and Merlin's mother had taken him into hiding – like he was thinking of doing now?

"She said she lost him," the old man answered, quickly, but when Merlin looked at him, there was a troubled wrinkle between bushy gray-white brows.

"You think there's a chance–"

Gaius glanced at him, then shook his head – slowly but decisively. "I don't think you should think like that, boy. Unfounded hope can prove very disappointing." The old man moved from the table to start the washing up.

"And… Yelder's Hollow?" he asked, both feeling and sounding hoarse. "And me? You mean, the company might… arrest me, or something? Take me away so I can't grow the holler, and the town has to pay them for the fertilizer?"

"Or worse." Gaius watched Merlin sink to the edge of his box-bed at the far end of the kitchen. "Boy… naïve is not quite the word for you. It's… pure-hearted, I'd say. This gift–"

"I don't –" Merlin began, shaking his head. A hard nut of pain in his chest was struggling to break open and grow into something frightening. "How is it a gift, if it took my dad from my mama, if it's the reason why I've had to–"

"Had to?" Gaius said, gently but keenly.

No. No, the old man was right. Merlin loved nature, from the ants toiling over grains of sand to the wild windstorms tossing high creaky ridge-pines. He couldn't imagine, now, wearing shoes every day and sitting in a classroom and working in a shop – or even tending one single quilt-block field. He delighted to observe unseen, both man and beast, to own the whole holler he belonged to, in some strange but real and familial way.

But… he wasn't happy about those two men. And he somehow felt, that could not be the end of it. Would it be the end of it if he left, down the ridge to a more remote hollow, a winter den where he could tuck and hide, like a wild animal himself? _Or just a scared little boy?_ How long before Gaius came to tell him, all clear? _Years_?

He was on his own feet before any intention was clear to his conscious mind, feeling the worn floorboards smooth beneath his feet, moving to the open doorway, the twilight breeze and bravest stars, the cool earth and stir of night-creatures.

Merlin breathed in, the world feeling rested and ready around him, as it always did this time of year. Pleased with the work of production, satisfied with plenty. Not yet feeling the cramp of winter's concern, will everything last til spring's rejuvenation. Not tied up in spring's preparation, or summer's tending. His work was finished this year, as well…

His work. He felt… in the middle, somehow. He knew the birth to death cycles of plant and insect, bird and animal. But everything began from something else – a seed, an egg, a mother – and led into something else. Death providing life.

But he, Merlin, didn't know. Was he an orphan, or did he have a father somewhere yet living? Would he ever have a son? – of course he was young and didn't know any girls anyway, but as close as he was to the myriad repeated families of the holler's wildlife, it wasn't so strange a thought as all that, for him. If he did, would his child be like him, and grow to fear and ignorance of who was a friend and who an enemy. Every creature knew its place – knew where its sustenance came from, knew which predator to flee. He didn't know any of it, and the lack of knowledge burned with something deeper and more lasting than curiosity.

_What about me?_ Merlin asked the sky, his question borne silently from his soul on the air currents. The trees listened and shook out their limbs in apologetic ignorance. The rest of the world paused attentively, but without comprehension.

_What does it mean for me? Am I the last one, the only one? Do I have to move, like my mother did, leaving Yelder's Hollow to die slowly, to spend hard earnings on fertilizer – and would the next hollow welcome him and Gaius, or… not? _And even though the thought scared him to death, he couldn't help thinking, it seemed a bit selfish, too.

"Where is Camelot?" he asked distractedly.

Gaius limped back to his place by the table, lifted his leg to rest. Merlin left the threshold to retrieve an extra blanket from a cupboard, and helped the old man rest the injured foot on it.

"Thank you, boy," he sighed. "Fort Leonard Wood is a military installation about a hundred miles north of here." His fingertips snagged the map he'd drawn and left lying out for Merlin, and stubbed one thick forefinger in approximation. "My guess is, a good many of those soldiers just kept taking orders when Pendragon took it over from the army to organize Camelot. Raised their sons to the life, and maybe their grandsons."

Private army.

Merlin lingered in the doorway, but only for a moment before smiling over his shoulder at Gaius. The flickering shadow cast by the single candle on the table carved the lines of age very deep on his old friend's face; he promised, "I'll come back in a bit."

**A/N: This is an adapted original. 14 chapters, update maybe once a week, maybe more like once every 10 days, we'll see… **

**NaNoWriMo is going okay, I'm holding steady where I belong with my word count. I'm not behind, I'm not ahead. But this weekend I'm flying out of state for my grandfather's funeral, so all schedule anticipations are up in the air at this point… omg no pun intended.**


	2. Strangers in a Strange Place

**Chapter 2: Strangers in a Strange Place**

Merlin set out up the ridge, in the near-dark and barefoot, but he was so familiar with this part of the holler especially, it didn't matter. Night always felt a bit damp, the creatures more alert to his movements. Not frightened of him, though they avoided him and his path, and he soon reached the rocky summit and rested on an outcropping.

All was dark before him, silent and serene. _Aware_, he felt, of the events that had transpired – whatever had happened that neither Merlin nor Gaius knew exactly, to bring the agents. And he wouldn't stay to see how many more of their kind came… Maybe it would be all too obvious, like the fighting Gaius had described in the cities, and he still could do nothing.

From here he could sense beyond the ridges of Yelder's Hollow, the whole wide sky, the whole wide world. He'd been content, before today. At home, and the holler cocooned and protected him. But now he felt a different need, a different call. Just as he'd left Gaius's cabin years ago to take to the slopes and ridges, now he felt himself on the edge of another departure, another stage in the cycle of his own life. Something that had been set for him since birth, even if he didn't see it and couldn't have anticipated it.

_Come out. The world is waiting, the road lies in front of you. Stop traveling in safe circles and go, since you cannot stay._

It was so quiet up here, the stars twinkling overhead, the few lights of town twinkling below; it seemed to him the holler had already accepted his departure as a matter of course, and bid him a placid farewell. Merlin listened a moment more. Yelder's Hollow was like a planted seed, comfortably set, waiting now only upon the turning of the sun and the falling of the rain.

Maybe spring would see him returned, or maybe not.

…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

Merlin usually woke earlier, when it was still mostly dark.

Then again, he usually woke out-of-doors, at the first hint of predawn light, when the daytime creatures began to stir, and those nocturnally-inclined crept to daytime refuges. He lay in his mother's bed in the loft, the dim light delayed by walls and roof, but creeping in and spreading through the skylight. The rafters of the roof were quite low, here in the corner; he could lift a hand and touch them with his back still on the old mattress. There was a slow gray spider patrolling its web further up the roof-slant, not directly over Merlin; he tipped his chin to watch, sensing that Gaius wasn't awake yet either.

He was excited, and yet a bit intimidated by his decision to leave the holler; he didn't mind spending a few moments more in the bed that had been his mother's, before experiencing that terrifying power of making choice reality. His tiny eight-legged companion reminded him of a story his mother had taught him, of a runt pig doomed for slaughter from the day he was born. Wilbur had left home, too, for a strange new world, and had made an unusual – an unusually good – friend.

"Terrific… radiant," Merlin whispered to himself. Maybe a miracle waited for him, too, and instead of being chopped for bacon, he'd win a blue ribbon and have his picture in the paper. Then again, the other words written in the web were, "Humble. Some pig."

Grinning at his own ridiculousness, he swung his legs over the side of the bed, and reached to exchange the nightshirt Gaius kept for his infrequent and usually wintertime visits for daytime clothes. But his trousers and shirt weren't on their nail-hook on the vertical support-post, and he remembered. They were hanging in the kitchen downstairs, drying overnight after the scrubbing he'd given them under the pump in the kitchen sink. And a new set rested in the bottom of the goatskin pack Gaius had given him.

One last glance around the loft before he left. His mother's dresser sat emptied and dusty, the cracked and scuffed mirror telling him her son bore little resemblance to her. _To my father, then?_ He bent to tug out the last wrinkle from the quilt that covered pillows and mattress both, then padded down the steep staircase.

Gaius, probably alerted by the creaking boards of the floor of the loft and the ceiling of the kitchen, was up and bustling awkwardly about breakfast preparations, his crutch tucked under one arm.

"Morning," Merlin said.

"Get dressed," Gaius said, brusquely but not unkindly, cutting his eyes toward the folded clothing on the seat of Merlin's chair by the table. "This'll be ready in a minute."

Merlin shook out his old garments, stiff from soap and hanging dry, and found that new patches had been sewn into knees and elbows, the buttons replaced also. He swallowed surprise and thanks, knowing both would embarrass his old friend, instead yanking his nightshirt off by the back collar, and putting his clothes on. He folded his nightshirt – something he rarely did, and Gaius would know why, this morning – and set it on the third stair, before stepping out the propped-open door to take care of the chickens before they ate.

The sun was just venturing above the rim of the earth as he set about the first chores that he knew almost as well as the old man himself. So many memories, following Gaius about to gather eggs, scatter feed, tote firewood. And then the pride of being trusted to do things on his own. Hang laundry – wash laundry. Carry the heavy buckets of water and measure it out on the garden plants – pull weeds, collect ripe produce.

Gaius manhandled one of the chairs through the doorway, then returned with a plate of toast and ham to share, sitting in the middle of the bobbing chickens in the yard to watch them and Merlin, hurriedly finishing morning chores. He didn't miss the fact that the old man faced the chair down the path toward town, still keeping an eye on the approach to the cabin, just in case the strangers came. But if they'd started out on foot at dawn, it would still take them two hours to reach the cabin. One of Puff's descendants curled its tail around its toes on the threshold and daintily ignored them all to clean one forepaw, then the other, with a rough pink tongue.

"How's your foot?" Merlin asked.

"If I say it aches like the dickens, would it change anything?" the old man returned; Merlin felt his face heat self-consciously, and turned away, seeking out the long green beans that resembled plant stems, hiding under the broad sticky leaves of the short round plants. "No, boy, don't feel guilty, I'll be fine. I can't say I don't appreciate a day off to rest it, but come tomorrow I'll feel lazy and want to do for myself."

Merlin hummed in understanding, wondering how to broach the topic of just how far he wanted to go, this time when he left. They were well beyond the time when Merlin needed permission from Gaius, but he would feel bad leaving things in disagreement between them. He finished the last row of beans and dropped his handful in the bucket, before crossing the dooryard and sitting on his heels near Gaius in his chair. Give it… six weeks, probably, til the first snowfall. And another two or three before the heavier storms stuck unmelting til spring.

"I was thinking about where you should go-" Gaius began, casual but keen.

"Camelot."

"What?" The old man's voice was uncharacteristically sharp, but Merlin didn't glance up to meet his eyes. He had the idea Gaius could talk him into just about anything, given the chance; instead he watched one of the white hens scratch and peck, diligently searching for the one perfect grain.

"Those two agents," he said. "What you told me… it changes things." Maybe everything.

"You're going to go _there_?" Gaius guessed, alarmed. "_Why_? If this is about your father…"

Merlin struggled to explain the only course of action that felt right to him, even if it didn't make logical sense. "Yes. And - it's not just about whether I have a dad, whether I can find him, whether I can find out for sure what happened to him. It's just… if I try to run away and find somewhere else to hide, I'll take all this with me, wherever I go, won't I? Unless I just quit growing things, and if I do that, then I might as well have never been born…"

"If you go there and they discover who you are, you might never come back," Gaius warned.

"At least I have to try to find out," Merlin said, pleading for his old friend to understand. "What's going on, whether there are others…"

A long silence. Then Gaius said, in a low rough voice, "And all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. Let me get that map, it's on the table."

Merlin bounced up and offered his shoulder to support Gaius back into the cabin, the old man carrying the plate while Merlin dragged the chair behind them, to position at the table again. The old man huffed down to sitting, and leaned forward to retrieve that one of their precious sheets of paper folded in quarters, as well as a charcoal pencil, then unfolded the map and scratched a few more marks.

"I want you to take this, also." He drew from his pocket a six-inch oblong of dark metal, with a pretence of only half his attention, and showed Merlin a small lever built into the side. "Push that just to the side, see." A blade emerged from the opposite side, rotating on a bright brass screw to snap into place. Opaque rather than shiny, it was double-bladed – one sharp, with a section serrated on the opposite side. "You push that lever again when you want to close the blade up. It's sharp and it's oiled and I want you to have it."

Merlin guessed that it was pre-collapse workmanship, something Gaius had kept and taken care of – or else foreign-made and therefore expensive. Either way, a prized possession. "I don't–" he began. "But what if I–"

"No buts," the old man said, refusing to take it back. "If I can't go with you, I'll feel better if you have that. I trust you – but no one else outside the holler. Just… be careful."

Merlin slid the blade back into the handle, turned it over twice to marvel at the ingenuity, then pocketed it. "I will," he promised, and wondered if maybe, Gaius intended him to feel like he needed to return it someday soon, safe and sound.

"Finish this, then tell me if you have any questions about your map," the old man said, thrusting both map and plate at Merlin.

Obediently he shoveled the last of their breakfast into his mouth. "I have to go south to go north?"

"Straight north is several days through mountains. Nothing like the Appalachians or the Rockies, but still sheer enough to waste your time and be dangerous. If you go south first, you can pick up the road west a few miles, then turn north on Five. Thirty-eight back east a ways, then north on Seventeen right into the base. I've no idea if the road signs are still in place, but I've written towns and my best guess at distance on the map."

Merlin turned the sheet over, seeing those directions written small in Gaius's neat print. "Okay."

"One last thing." The old man took a tiny leather pouch from his pocket. "I taught you money when you were a boy, do you remember?"

"A penny is one cent, a nickel is five, a dime is ten, a quarter is twenty-five. Half-dollars and dollars."

"And paper money is worthless," the old man finished. "The value changes depending on who you're taking it from, or who's taking it from you. Now, if I was you, I'd split these coins out and hide them in your clothes and pack, just in case. Then when you go into a town, put just a few in your pocket. You don't want people watching to see if you're poor enough to steal from them, but you don't want other folks wondering if it's worth it to mug you, either."

"Mug?" Merlin said. It was an unfamiliar term; Gaius used those sporadically, and hardly ever explained; he wasn't surprised or offended when this time proved the same. Sighing, he lifted the old man's foot to his knee. "You have to keep off this if you don't want it to swell like a pumpkin," he said, unpinning and unwinding the bandage.

"I know how to take care of myself," the old man growled in mock irritation, but made no protest. Maybe he understood, this was Merlin's way of saying goodbye, and thanks for everything.

"You've got two buckets of produce there, to put up for the winter – do it sitting down? And by the time the garden needs you…"

"Yes, all right," the old man said impatiently, but there was a twinkle in his eyes.

The wound had seeped a bit, but the color of the stain on the bandage was normal, and didn't stick much. Gaius's bony foot was ugly with bruising, a bit swollen, but the cut itself was covered nicely with a thick red scab, soft from the ointment and bandage. Propping the injured appendage on his chair, Merlin took the bandage to the sink to wash and dry for re-use, and returned with a fresh strip of cotton and the little clay jar of Jeannie's ointment.

"This is another thing for you to be careful of," Gaius said. "Makes me wish I was coming with you."

"What?" Merlin said, preparing to dab ointment over the cut.

"If the ax had fallen on your foot," Gaius said, controlling himself to a more gentle tone, "what color would you bleed?"

"Green, the same as I always do…" He trailed off, beginning to understand, then bent over his task of re-bandaging.

"I don't want you hurt anyway," Gaius said. "Not in a million years. But you'll have to be careful to cover any cut or scrape so no one can see you're any different from anyone else. Take bandages... and the rest of this ointment."

Merlin made a face. "You need it," he disagreed. "I'll be fine. I'll find someone who makes or sells that kind of thing, if I need it. A bandage ought to be good enough, for just in case." He pinned the last end of the bandage in place, and rose from his seat. "By the time you're done loading my pack down with _just one more thing_, I won't be able to walk out of the holler under its weight."

"Maybe that's my ulterior motive," Gaius said. "Oh, fine, then, get going. _Around_ town, now, mind."

The old man rose on one steady leg and his crutch, as Merlin shouldered and pocketed and picked up everything Gaius was sure he'd need. Then he hesitated – physically-demonstrated affection had been limited, to and from his mother by both of them – and startled only a bit when Gaius pulled him into a brief, rough embrace.

"I'll be seeing you," Merlin said, with a smile meant to reassure his friend. Then he stepped over the threshold and headed across the dooryard, through the cool fresh of early air and sunlight.

He entered the trees at an angle calculated to take him to the south road, passing out of earshot, then out of sight of his old friend. Nowhere near the path to town. Just in case.

By midday Merlin stood at the bottom of the hollow, leaning on the craggy gray trunk of a cottonwood, looking out on the world.

The sun this morning was nothing like the rays of spring - which he soaked in as much as the growing greenery, fairly _feeling_ the life - but hard and unrelenting.

The dull-tin of the road snaked away to the east under the glare, and he could feel the wary breathless gasp of the land beyond. He could see the wisps of sere grass from where he stood, meager clumps like scattered islands in a sea of dead dirt, a few spindly stalks of taller weeds. As though all the world had stood under the more acidic trees, and oak and beech leaves and pine needles had choked the undergrowth down to dust.

Except, there weren't any trees, either. None to speak of, anyway, a few stunted cypress and pecan, maybe. There was very little to conceal him, out in that land. And he could understand, now, why the lush green of Yelder's Hollow was so important to those that lived there.

But Merlin didn't feel retreat. He felt an understanding, encouragement from the healthy richness he had helped to nurture at his back, almost like his mother giving him a push out the door. Go. Discover and learn.

He thought, _Go west young man go west_. No, that wasn't right. He would go west only a few miles before turning to go mostly north. Well, whatever.

Merlin crept out from behind the tree, and left his holler.

For a while he kept one eye over his shoulder; it took conscious effort to leave the grass dry and stunted and yellow, the earth parched and exhausted and needy. When he moved to the road – cracked and crumbling, lines faded and holes spreading – it was easier. The call to give and grow and replenish was much fainter – but the road's surface was hot under the soles of his feet, even this far past summer. He considered putting on the boots that dangled from the bottom of the pack, brushing and bumping the backs of his thighs, but the heat never grew sharp or intense enough for him to need them, so he kept walking.

The land, in spite of the dull lack of color and sense of desertion, wasn't what he pictured when he thought of the deserts of the west, of Texas to the far south. There were remnants of civilization and occupation all around him, still. Roads in forty years' disrepair, buildings or homes visible in the distance, burned or gutted or simply a too-regular-for-nature hole in the ground.

When the sun slipped over the horizon, he heard the low growl of a motor, recognized from infrequent glimpses of the few vehicles still used in the holler. Merlin directed his steps to the side of the road, unhurriedly making for one of the scrubby pecans, then dumped his pack and sat on his heels to watch a familiar truck roll past – the mismatched paint and rust of the junkman's pickup. Another scavenged load tied down under a canvas cloth in the back, the man's chin propped in his hand, elbow in the window, as he steered the growling, puffing monster.

He didn't notice Merlin at all, and then all was still, and Merlin couldn't think of a reason why this shouldn't be his camp for the night.

…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

Late afternoon on the second day, his attention was caught by a glimmer off to his left. He trotted forward a quarter of a mile, to a little rise, and squinted into the sun – to see the rough silvery surface of water – a lake, maybe.

And movement.

Merlin rested the walking staff he'd cut for himself in the hollow of his shoulder, and lifted both hands to shade his eyes. Men working in an older, darker-green section of forest; horses, too, about five times as many as Yelder's Hollow could gather. Dragging the great logs to the water, he guessed, and further assumed a mill somewhere, powered by the lake's water, or even a river.

It gave him a funny feeling, even though recognition would have been impossible at that distance, to know that he watched people he'd never laid eyes on before in his life. Almost he was tempted to walk down there and pass among them, just for curiosity's sake, but… well, they were working, after all, and he didn't want to bother them, interrupt or get in the way. That would draw attention in a negative way.

But when he came upon a turn-off that intrigued him - recently used, and scattered with sawdust and bark in the wheel-ruts - he left the road and followed the track, winding up into the hills that the road twisted and bent to avoid.

He smelled the crisp scent of fresh lumber, first, but heard only birdsong and grasshoppers. No one working today, or maybe they were done with the site. The track turned and curved over the brow of a little hill as he followed it, and suddenly the slopes of stumps spread out before him.

"Oh," he said involuntarily, sorrowfully.

He could tell that several days had passed since the cutting; the time seemed to have served to dull the pain and further the resignation of the land to the tree-farming – a rush of wind cooled and soothed and comforted Merlin with the earth's forgiveness. A necessary sacrifice from a non-sentient source, but this wasn't the end, either. Already the rain beat and mixed the chips and flecks of tree-marrow into the earth. Already the fallen seeds and nuts cuddled into their muddy nests to sleep the winter, preparing to wake and grow in the spring, all the stronger for the lack of competition from taller and leafier ancestors for sunlight and soil-nutrient.

He lifted his eyes from the closest slopes and saw that there were further hills, a pattern of short feathery seedlings, slender supple saplings, sturdier older trees, of the same height and spaced regularly.

"Oh," Merlin said again, in a different tone, understanding a little better. It was planned, it was regulated… at least it wasn't wasteful.

Still, he elected to walk through the forest of stumps, uphill and down, rather than return immediately to the road; as long as he continued north, it would be there on his right. And if he let a little life trickle out of him to spread into the earth to nourish these bare slopes for future growth, who would know?

An hour or so later, reaching the edge of a plot of decade-old hardwood trees, he saw that he'd have to angle either back toward the road, or take a decisive turn toward the lumber camp; to go forward meant one of those steep climbs Gaius had advised against, north out of the holler. He turned his steps eastward as he descended, yet glanced back toward the sun and the camp of men often.

And so came face to face with the worker before he had time to even think about concealment.

"Afternoon," the man said, straightening with surprise but not alarm from his work – some instrument on a tall tripod that he was peering through. It reminded Merlin of a picture in one of Gaius's history books, of a young George Washington, learning the surveying trade.

"Hello," Merlin returned, at once excited and confused. He wanted to run – to stand and talk – to slip by ignored – to meet someone. "I'm sorry if I'm–"

"Not at all," the other said, looking Merlin over with a critical eye that somehow did not seem impolite. He was thirty-ish, with light hair and a short beard. "Are you looking for a job? Lumber camp's back that way, and the sawmill further southwest along the shore of the lake."

"No, I'm… just passing through," Merlin said.

"You looking for the road, then? Five takes a jog east a couple of miles, maybe you didn't know? But you can pick it up again if you keep heading north, and angle a bit east."

"Thanks," Merlin said, shuffling the straps of his goatskin pack over his shoulders, which caused the other to glance down and behind him, and grin.

"You saving those boots for a special occasion, kid?"

Merlin felt the gentle tug of weight as Gaius's gift swung behind him. He said honestly, "Christmas?" The surveyor laughed like he'd told a fine joke, and Merlin was made bold enough to add, "I was just curious about the – stumps, and the new plantings."

"Mm hm."

"Can I ask a question?" Merlin's heart pounded at his own daring, but if his courage failed here, he had no business continuing his journey. "Y'all use Camelot fertilizer to re-grow the timber stands?"

The stranger gave him an odd look. "How far away were you when you started walking, boy? Nothing grows without it."

"Yeah," Merlin said, and could think of nothing else to say or ask, if he was supposed to have come from a place where it was commonly used. "Yeah," he repeated, " 'Course. I'll just…" He began to retreat, without completely turning his back, which would be rude, he felt. Then he thought to say, "It was nice to have met you."

The surveyor raised his head, more startled at his words than at his taking leave without them. "You, too," he said. "Hey, kid… take care of yourself."

He allowed a smile and ducked his head, and let the downhill course pull him along at a faster pace.

Well, that had been… interesting. Maybe awkward a bit, but the stranger hadn't been suspicious in the least. It was… liberating. If he'd come upon someone from Yelder's Hollow, where he knew far better than he was known, the person would probably react with immediate and defensive interrogation. _Who are you_ and _where are you from_ and _what do you want here_. You aren't familiar, you don't belong. Even though he could explain, _I'm Gaius's boy_, there would be surprise and more questions, maybe, why he was so different. So solitary, so shy.

Out here, where everyone was a stranger, maybe no one would pay him much mind at all. That settled him, relaxed and reassured him.

As the sun lowered in the western sky, Merlin's second day on the road, he came over a little hill to see movement in an unmistakably inhabited part of the abandoned town.

The last two bridges he'd crossed had taken him over dry ditches; he was sure he could find water, following his own instinct and the feel of the land, but true dark was still several hours away. He had time to walk through this town like he'd wanted to do at the lumber camp – no worry that he'd be trespassing on a busy and dangerous work-space, and his brief interaction with the surveyor made him feel both brave and curious.

He'd seen no signs announcing the name of the place, either old metal ones of orange rust and green-and-white paint, or newer ones of wood, letters carved and burnt. Fences had been erected between the houses and buildings that formed a perimeter, though he couldn't see more than a few hundred yards to either side, not to guess how large of an area might be enclosed. As he moved closer he could identify some of the components of the barrier – chunks of broken masonry, warped sheet-metal, even some motor vehicles turned on their sides to expose stripped undercarriages.

There was a break in this fence where what seemed to be the main road – cracked and crumbling at its best - passed into the compound; he approached with slower steps, wondering worriedly if he ought not turn tail and run, after all.

A man rolled out from behind the fence, sauntering forward to intercept Merlin; he stopped instinctively where he was. The man was strange, and intimidating, middle-aged and short, but thick with muscle, his head shorn as if to hide the gray. He was dressed in dusty olive-green with a long knife prominent in his belt at his hip. He cracked his knuckles and scowled at Merlin in place of a greeting.

"What's your business, boy?" he demanded, leaning to eye the pack and the pair of boots dangling from it.

Merlin decided instinctively to put them on his feet, the first chance he got. "Nothing. I'm just… traveling, and thought I could… buy some supplies, here?"

The man grunted, now evaluating him like he could guess exactly how much money Merlin carried, and where. "There's a supply store up this main road a couple of blocks. Watch your step, and don't make trouble."

He backed up, still watching Merlin, who moved on – a little less easy, a little more self-conscious.

The houses were old, some bent and leaning, some crumbling; repairs looked temporary and careless. He wondered if various trades, like in the holler, were practiced from the tradesman's home. People were everywhere, and in such variety Merlin found it hard to focus and differentiate, every moment distracted by something new. It had been a long time since Merlin had seen so many people at one time – and none of them had the faintest interest in him. He stood in the center of the street and only just remembered to keep his mouth shut as he absorbed.

Then it seemed to him, the voices were loud, the laughter was harsh, and no one smiled. It made him uneasy.

His feet moved of their own accord, further down the public thoroughfare toward the center of the enclosed town-within-a-town, seeking the supply-store the gate guard had mentioned. Activity seemed to be centered around a house-sized building somewhat isolated from the other structures; he decided this was likely to be his destination.

It looked as though the top half of the walls were meant to be immense windows, one crowded right into the next, but only a single frame still held glass; the others were boarded up or filled in with uneven bricks and sloppy mud. A great metal roof overshadowed the paved square in front of the building, supported with thick columns, protecting two strange boxy machines with thick black cords attached to strange handles, stuck in its sides. An oily odor hung in the air, and he sensed an inexplicable tension running through the noise of the crowd. Gathered, for some reason, not just a greater concentration of people moving through the same area.

Merlin sat on a bit of curb where the lot met the street to put his new boots on and tie them, then skirted the crowd and entered a gap. He headed obliquely for the front door of the building, but promptly forgot his errand as he drew closer to the center of the gathering.

Shouting. Fighting.

He couldn't see the combatants clearly, but a woman cried out, and his nerves shivered with a sudden and frightening insistence that he personally ensure that sound was never made, again. He wanted to turn and slip away and forget, but his feet took him reluctantly closer.

"I'll teach you to plow with my heifer!" someone roared, and Merlin was close enough now to see and hear the smack of one man's fist into another's face.

The woman screeched again, so close Merlin jumped – he could have touched her past the brown-shirted observer who stood between them.

"Leave him alone!" She added a term Merlin was unfamiliar with; it was clearly derogatory and maybe even foul, and didn't seem to match the short-skirted yellow dress she was wearing, that showed bare skin - arms, and knees between her hem and her boots. She launched herself at the struggling pair as they heaved closer; the half-dozen spectators nearest Merlin took a collective step back, and he found himself in the front row.

A third man appeared from the side, bearded and broad-chested, and slapped her hard, full in the face, without hesitation or mercy or warning. "Shut yer yap, Callie, you done enough already!"

She clattered to the ground, scraped, bruised, and uncoordinated from the force of the blow, and moaned in a way that twisted Merlin's stomach. He wanted to do something, help her up maybe, but he was frozen, and could only watch her crawl around like she'd lost something small – her wits maybe – though that brought her nearer his unmoving feet.

" 'Course you'd take… his part," she spat finally, getting unsteadily to her feet.

She continued to spew bitter invective that Merlin understood more by the tone than the words. The two fighters were on the ground a few paces distant, the one on top punching the other repeatedly – almost wearily, but without resistance.

Merlin had never seen anything like that, it made him feel sick and unclean and uncertain and responsible, somehow. The bearded man growled another curse and lunged for the woman, who squeaked and scuttled sideways. And Merlin found that without having moved at all, the way the crowd – with better sense and more familiarity – had, he stood right between them. He met the man's gaze with some astonishment, dark eyes and greasy dark hair and inexplicable antagonism.

"Move outta the way, boy," the bearded stranger sneered.

Merlin glanced back and down at the woman, who flinched away, but the front row of the crowd – her neighbors? he couldn't believe this was happening – wouldn't let her melt into them and disappear.

"You should leave her alone, don't you think?" he said, turning back to the man. "She's not trying to hurt you. Whatever you've disagreed about, you could try to talk-"

The man's eyes widened with sudden intent, and his shoulders twitched.

Then Merlin was looking up at the clear blue expanse of the sky, and his face was throbbing, and his hip where he'd hit the ground and the pack hadn't padded him. He thought one strap might have ripped; it felt crooked beneath him.

Well. That wasn't careful.

He heard laughter, raucous and mean-spirited. With no clearer idea of what he planned to do beyond getting back to his feet, he rolled to his side and put his palm down on the gritty pavement to push himself up.

Something warm and liquid trickled numbly over his lips, tickling down his chin, and a metallic taste filled his mouth. He spat to clear it without thinking, and rubbed the back of his other hand across his face – and stopped cold.

His blood. With that unmistakable glimmer of green, smeared over his skin.

"What the–"

Dead silence was replaced by a confusing, deafening rattle of voices and feet, surging around him like spring-thaw run-off, cascading down the stone-bones of the ridge. Obscenities, questions – he reached for the walking staff that had clattered a few feet from his hand, still trying only to stand, and someone kicked him back down from behind.

The remaining strap of his pack slipped from his shoulder. Abandoning the staff that might be considered a weapon, Merlin gathered the pack up in his arms and turned, kneeling, to look up at the faces around, shifting as the people jostled each other to stare at him. Some scared, some disgusted, some wearing expressions Merlin had seen a few times on gaunt, hungry wolves sneaking down from the high ridges in mid-winter. He shivered involuntarily and held still, dropping his eyes, to provoke no attack.

"What… _is_ it?"

He turned at the question, hissed into a moment of relative silence – but too late to avoid another foot. The sole of a boot slammed into his shoulder and the side of his head, sending him tumbling to the pavement.

Now he was dizzy and his ear was ringing and his fingers felt weak on the straps of the goatskin pack. The instinct to flee, to escape, was rising like panic in his throat – but he was surrounded.

"I know what that is," someone said. A female, if he had to guess, but low-pitched with authority. "Leave off for now, boys. If I'm right, he might be more valuable alive than dead. Dottie'll be interested, come the morning. Jimson, get him back up by the station for the night."

Merlin rolled, trying to locate the speaker, trying to avoid the skinny arms and clawed fingers that reached for him. "Please–"

More men were on him, seizing his clothes, grinding his face down on the ground, forcing his hands together behind his back, and his resistance failed. He felt the pull of his coat tied around his waist yanked free, the bulge of his pack retreated from beneath his ribs. Everything Gaius had given him, everything he'd need if he wanted to get to Fort Leonard Wood…

"No, that's mine! You can't – please!"

The female voice of authority said, "Here, use this to keep him quiet."

Scratchy, smelly fabric rubbed at his face – he flinched and closed his eyes and fought harder – and it seemed to him that he must be winning, against all odds.

The hands seemed more gentle, more distant, the voices quieter. His movements didn't require the same strength or speed to resist whatever was happening to him, and the ground did not feel so hard beneath him – in fact, was no longer beneath him at all.

No one touching him, no reason to keep struggling, just the falling darkness of night, warm and soft and insistent.


	3. Friends and Enemies

**Chapter 3: Friends and Enemies**

She was dreaming.

In her dream, part of her knew she was dreaming. It was in the way she ran without knowing why or what from, the overwhelming but irrational terror that pounded in her heart and rasped in her breath. It was the running itself, slow and hindered like she moved through knee-deep water. It was the lack of clarity to her surroundings – city or country or town?

_ "Freya!" _She heard her father call her name, all hope and warning and desperation. It was _Keep running!_ and _Come back!_ in one.

She looked over her dream-shoulder to see him. Short and sharp-featured, shaven head and compact movements, racing after her. Also with dream-like slowness.

Past him, oh-so-vaguely, the black-clad body and frizzy pink hair of the bounty hunter, lifting the rifle to her shoulder, laying her cheek down to sight along the barrel –

_No no no_! Fatal helplessness. No word, no act, no feeling could save him – and part of her knew this was only a memory replaying in exhausted vulnerable slumber anyway.

_ Crack. _The shot was sharp, and not loud - the effect instant.

Her father was gone before his feet stumbled, before his arms flew up, before his body hit the ground. Eyes blank and empty before they closed. Blood was everywhere – his chest, her hands, their clothes. She was on her knees next to him, but frozen now – she couldn't touch him, shield him, shake him alive. Couldn't beg or scream or accuse.

Couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. In the dream, she wondered why she still struggled to free herself, to live, rather than simply letting her heart stop.

Freya woke with a gasp, dragging the stench of the trailer into her lungs, arms and legs rustling the loose straw on the floor of her prison in bracing her body involuntarily. Some part of her recognized that the vehicle was stationary, the engine quiet, though the air did not hold the dark of night. Vaguely she recalled breakfast, the trailer rolling forward again afterwards – and she'd fallen asleep again, somehow.

"Bad dreams, little girl?" the woman across from her said sarcastically.

Freya flinched away, pushing herself up against the front end of the trailer, solid metal unlike the walls or the low ceiling – which was really only the floor of the cage above her.

For once, though, no one else seemed to be paying any attention. The cage right next to Freya was empty, but through the narrow oblongs cut in the metal in eighteen-inch rows, she could see a few of the others, focused as best they all could on something or someone outside Freya's side of the trailer. She turned, rustling in the dirty straw, and bent her head to peer out – not curiosity so much as self-preservation.

Midmorning or thereabouts, but the sky was overcast. They were parked in a lot at a refueling center; she squinted toward the station's rear. Two broken chairs and a crooked chest-of-drawers, a ginger cat slinking through a scatter of trash, stacks of crates and another of rotten wooden pallets. And a plump woman with curly blonde hair, torn trousers and a hard face, hugged her arms to her chest to watch the bounty hunter stride back toward the trailer.

Dottie was dressed in black as always, military boots and trousers and long-sleeved shirt, worn tight to show off her figure and distract – as did the frizzy false-pink hair – from her mid-forties face, lined and freckled. Her rifle was balanced nonchalantly over one shoulder, a furry tan bag carried in her other hand.

But she was not the person of interest, to the prisoners. Everyone knew Dottie and hated her; she had arrested each one after all and most, Freya guessed, with the sort of ruthless violence she herself had experienced, and her father had suffered.

Gwaine followed behind her. Moving with slower, more deliberate steps, because he was bowed under the weight of another body.

Dalmer, a man the size and color of a black granite boulder, said indiscriminately from the cage above Freya, "Did you know she had another contract?"

Tandy, the woman across from Freya, rumored to have killed five men in one altercation, answered, "I thought we was it, but there's still a cage open."

At the far end of the trailer, Dottie unlocked the narrow door-panel, letting it fall to the pavement with a clang, though it did not allow for an appreciable increase of light or fresh air. Gwaine's boots sounded on the ramp formed, and though many of the prisoners crowded forward to watch, no one tried to put a hand through the oblong openings to harm or impede him.

Mutters from the prisoners grew in volume and daring, the further Gwaine got from Dottie, walking carefully so he didn't bang into the metal walls, either himself or his unconscious burden.

"A new one?"

"What's he in for, Gwaine?"

"Who izzy?"

Gwaine saved his breath for his chore, for once, swaying in place in the narrow walkway that divided the trailer lengthwise to unlatch the section that opened the cell next to Freya. He knelt in the dirty straw they all wallowed in to slide the body of the other in a decently careful way – first to the worn plank floor of the trailer, then into the cage.

"Full up now, Gwaine," Tandy said, as he pulled out the key he wore on a chain around his neck to lock the cell. "You get any more prisoners, you're gonna have to start stowing us two to a bunk."

"Sorry, Tandy, you still get solitary," Gwaine tossed over his shoulder with a grin, then ducked his head to glance up at the man above Freya as his fingers double-checked the security of the new prisoner's cell. "You too, Dalmer."

Dalmer growled out an obscene threat, that didn't diminish Gwaine's cheerfulness one bit. He turned, then snapped his fingers as if just recalling something he'd intended not to forget, and spun back to – her, Freya. He crouched and pressed close to the outer panel of her cell to meet her eyes.

"Do me a favor?" he said softly. "Your dad – his offense was hijacking a shipment of Camelot snagger, wasn't it." Freya didn't answer. "You've seen it used, haven't you? You know the side effects, what to do for someone coming out of it?"

She had.

Her father had hated Camelot as long as Freya could remember; her mother had been a restraining force on her father's temper, but her mother had died two years ago. This last year, after discovering the quantities of snagger shipped into Fort Leonard Wood from the chemists in the southeast, he'd formulated a theory of conspiracy, and acted on it. He and others had stolen a shipment, had spent months testing and demonstrating; he'd brought Freya with him on his trips, trying to rally resistance and stay one step ahead of Pendragon security. They'd succeeded, until Dottie.

"Is that what's wrong with him?" she said in a voice that felt hoarse from daily disuse and nightly sob-stifling.

"Gwaine! Let's go!" Dottie yelled from the rear of the trailer; she hadn't come inside, she never did.

"That, and I think he got clocked pretty good." Gwaine shifted to glance over at the new prisoner, taking little note of his employer's impatience. "Just keep your eye on him? If there's a serious problem, you and Dalmer and Tandy bang on the trailer head til we pull over. That stuff is iffy, Dottie doesn't want him passing on us before we know what he's worth."

"What did he do?" Tandy asked. Gwaine didn't answer, just pushed to his feet and strode back down the length of the trailer, down the ramp.

Freya heard it slam in place, heard Dottie speaking critically and Gwaine defensively as they returned to the cab of the semi-truck. Heard the cough and growl, felt the persistent rumble, and smelled the oily-smoke of the exhaust as they prepared to continue their journey back to Fort Leonard Wood. She watched the new man on the straw next to her, almost near enough to touch if she could fit her whole arm through one of the slits.

He lay sprawled on his side with his back to her – broad-shouldered, though not so muscled as Gwaine was. His clothes looked new; his boots – soled in some homemade glue or gum – were also new. He was breathing, at least, though not moving otherwise. His hair was black, shaggy and disheveled… and somehow the mystery of his crime didn't seem to matter quite so much if he wasn't awake and aware.

Freya scooted next to the panel that divided them, and waited for him to wake up.

…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

Merlin's first thought was, that he was dead. Panic over _hell_ dissolved into his second thought. He only wished he was dead.

His head was thumping with hot agony, his lungs felt wrapped in wet sacking. Odors thick and foul clogged his throat and nose, something like burned manure, and he was going to vomit. Maybe he already had, but he instinctively tried to swallow the nausea, and choked as his airway stuck closed. It was as if his insides were trying to crawl out, or trickle out if he was upside down and that might be why he felt dizzy and his head was pounding.

He swallowed again, to be sure to keep everything where it belonged. He seemed to have the shudders, too, his whole body jolted like he was shivering violently against rock-hard bare earth – only he felt more hot than cold.

Then he heard a voice, soothingly feminine, felt hands light and gentle on his head, his face, trying to turn him.

"Mama?" he heard himself say, felt his mouth and tongue move without conscious intent.

"No, I'm not your mama. But if you spew, you're going to wish you'd turned on your side. Come on now, easy does it."

He tried. But even though he still felt the definite and sickening sensation of motion, he didn't seem to be in control of it. Then the hard surface beneath him slammed viciously, several inches up and abruptly down, and he found new bruises along his left side. And another surface against his chest and thighs, that he clung to without thinking, for a bit more stability. The tips of his fingers found gaps, and wrapped through without touching anything else.

"It might be better if you open your eyes," the same voice suggested; she sounded very close, and he was aware enough now to think, it wasn't the same woman as had spoken to the crowd in the last memory he could summon. This one sounded younger. "What's your name?"

He took a chance, and forced his eyelids apart. Blinked for a moment at an odd wall of metal, striped with narrow openings, before his eyes adjusted and moved past, into the space beyond.

A girl, skinny and dirty and young, younger than him by some years. Eyes dark as the night, wide and beautifully luminous – and hurt and wary. Dark hair stuck with bits of straw or grass curled over the shoulders of a stained pink shirt and shifted with the same movement that still disoriented him.

"Merlin," he said. "I'm Merlin."

"My name is Freya," she said.

Another voice, that seemed to come from past his feet, said, "He awake now? What's his name? What did he do?"

Merlin's body jounced involuntarily and bruised a little more. "Are we moving?" he said desperately, tightening his grip on the metal stripes – thin but not sharp. "Why does it feel like we're moving?"

"We're in a trailer," Freya told him, her voice soft and low, through a steady thrum of continual noise he almost recognized. "They used to use it to transport pigs, I think, a long time ago. Just us, now."

"A… motor vehicle?" He swallowed again, and wished there was something he could do to stop sweating, too; his whole body prickled with alternate heat, then cold.

"A semi-truck."

It struck him as ridiculous, and he tried to laugh. If only to keep from sobbing.

"What's the matter?"

"It's my first ride," he admitted. "Am I car-sick?"

She didn't answer. "Where are you from, Merlin? What did you do to earn a bounty?"

"A bounty?"

It was gradual, but maybe he was starting to adjust a bit to the constant motion and jolting; he used the strange metal striping to pull himself up toward sitting. His pack was gone, his jacket – his boots still on, though, and hopefully that meant Gaius's knife in one and a handful of coins in the other.

"People snagged you and probably sold you to Dottie. Bounty hunter. You must have done something to make her think she'll get paid for turning you over to authorities."

His thoughts still seemed sluggish. _Snagged_ was an odd word choice, but close enough to truth, he supposed. _Hunter_ he understood… _authorities_.

"What's that all over your face, kid?" a man's voice asked from right above him, startling him into looking around, seeing other figures through other panels of the same striped metal.

Merlin reached up intending to touch his skin where he couldn't see, to better guess a possible answer. But the sight of his fingers, green-smeared, stopped the motion. He checked his hand quickly, front and back, rubbed it with the other, rubbed both over his face, wincing at the tenderness of nose and cheekbone and lip. Hearing the voices from the town – and suddenly his fingers were trembling, trying to remove the traces of telltale blood, but it was dry and wouldn't wipe away.

"Nothing. It's nothing."

"It's green blood," the man stated bluntly.

The woman swore, then added, "You're kidding me. Thought the Knights was all dead and gone."

Merlin pushed himself against the outer wall, away from them who might hurt him, curled himself up as small as he could get. Though it occurred to him, locked up as they were in this strange metal cage on wheels, no one could reach him to hurt him, still he didn't relax.

"He's going to wish he was, once we get to Camelot," the man commented sardonically.

He risked a glance at Freya – for confirmation, for reassurance, for what he didn't know. She wasn't meeting his eyes, but plenty of the others were still looking at him, watching him, and there was nowhere to hide. He turned sideways, drawing his knees up, winding his arms around his head.

Bad to worse – discovered, then captured by agents of Camelot. Had he made a mistake, leaving Yelder's Hollow? He peered outside the trailer, down at the road, further to the blur of dirt and scrub that trundled past, and could not quite recall the sense of peace and encouragement he'd felt.

Maybe he passed out again, or maybe just fell asleep, but when he alerted to a change in the whirring, grinding noises of the engine and the wheels, he opened his eyes to find himself curled up on the floor of the trailer against the outer wall. It seemed to him that they were slowing; he glanced to the side and found Freya watching him. What of her expression he could see through the panels of their prison was thoughtful and not unsympathetic; he hoped that maybe she had decided not to hold the color of his blood against him.

The engine shifted again, and a sharp squealing sounded as coasting turned to a calculated attempt to stop. It was an unpleasant sensation, that his body seemed to want to keep moving forward for a few moments, even after the ground – road and ditch and dirty plains and hills beyond – stopped passing beneath them.

There was a metallic latching noise – another further away – and a clear male voice sounded from outside the trailer. "I don't _know_ what's wrong, Dottie, I'm a mechanic, not an engineer. I can guess, but until I take a look, I won't know for sure."

Merlin twisted to have a look at the speaker – then stared. The young man wore an odd suit of clothes, not solidly black or brown or even blue, but a mottled brown-black-green, over heavy black boots that looked professionally made. Moving with swift confidence, he stripped off the jacket to show a plainer shirt of light brown cotton, then tossed the jacket back up toward the driver's seat of the truck. He turned to glance back at them as he shoved his fingers through a glossy mane of curls the color of fresh-turned earth, then tied his hair tight at the nape of his neck with a bit of twine.

"Everyone still alive?" He addressed the trailer in a careless way, but it seemed to Merlin that his eyes searched for and found _him_. No one said anything; he turned and disappeared up toward the front of the truck. Merlin heard him continue speaking, the conversation almost obliterated by the clunk and rasp and clatter of metal.

"That's Gwaine," Freya told him. "He's from Texas, he works for Dottie. He's nice enough, but I don't trust him, really."

"Why not?" Merlin said, curious.

Freya shrugged; it seemed to him that she was conscious of the other prisoners listening. "He… smiles at… everyone," she said eventually.

Merlin turned his attention downward. They'd parked far enough off the road for the ground just below his cage to be dirt instead of pavement; he stretched his fingers through one of the oblong holes to try to touch, reaching for the comfort and life of the earth.

He felt it, a bit, a sort of optimism and hope, and he decided, he hadn't given up. Maybe he was thinking more clearly, too.

"Do they feed us?" he asked Freya quietly, aware in the new quiet of the sounds made by at least half a dozen other prisoners, the probability of others listening. "What about water? Do you know if they kept or brought my things?"

"Dottie had a pack in her hand when Gwaine put you in here. They keep some of the prisoners' stuff in the cab," Freya answered. "We've been given two or three meals a day, whatever Dottie decides, but they don't let us out."

"What about washing?" he said. "Or what about…" He cut himself off in embarrassment; she turned her head just enough that he couldn't see her face.

"What about privacy to relieve yourself?" the harsh voice of the male imprisoned overhead drew Merlin's attention. "Ha. No, that's one of the rights of freedom we don't get. Gwaine will bring a bucket, you'll get a turn to use it."

Merlin grimaced and restrained a shudder. The woman across the way snickered, and he found himself shifting into the far corner he shared with Freya, dangling his fingers to the outside again.

"How long have you been in here?" he said to her, more softly so they might not be overheard or interrupted.

"Not quite a week," she said. "Are you from Noble Corner?"

It wasn't a name he was familiar with. "No," he said. "Why?"

She shrugged, and tucked her hair to one side of her neck in a self-conscious gesture. "That's the town where we picked you up. I just wondered if you did something to make your neighbors turn on you."

"No," he said.

"Never killed anyone?" the man above them said.

Freya glanced up and cringed a few inches lower in her slump. Merlin followed her gaze to guess that the dark-eyed man was lying flat on his stomach, peering through the slats that separated them.

"No," Merlin said again, and didn't dare ask, _what about you_. It was a trailer-full of criminals, if he understood the concept correctly – which made him curious about the young girl next to him. But she was speaking again before he had the chance.

"Did you run away from home?" Again he halted his inclination to turn the question back on the asker, and only shook his head. She added, "Only… you called for your mama earlier, when you were trying to wake up."

Merlin took a deep breath – the memory of her sad smile, the glance back over her shoulder - and let it out slowly. "My mama died a long time ago."

"Mine's gone too," Freya said unexpectedly, holding his gaze through the perforated panel. "I'm sorry."

"She was sick a long time," Merlin said. "Kind of up and down. Better a few days, then back in bed. What… what happened to yours?"

Freya didn't answer. "So your daddy raised you, too?" she asked, so quiet it was almost a whisper, and he made a guess based on the last word of her question, though he didn't comment on it.

"No, I don't remember my dad. That's one of the reasons I left home, going to see if I could find him… or what happened to him."

"Maybe he got shot in the back," the man above them suggested, in an inexplicably vicious way. Freya's hands flew up before her face as if in self-defense; she gulped a little like she'd been struck.

"Maybe you could keep your mouth shut, if you haven't got anything nice to say," Merlin told him, feeling an echo of the bold-scared-responsible sensation he'd gotten at the fight, that was uncomfortably similar to nausea.

The man grunted. "Where's home for you, then, boy?"

Merlin ignored him. It seemed to him that the other prisoner was studying and judging and evaluating him like an object, not simply curious or concerned about him as a person – that maybe he'd already done the same to Freya, and that was the reason for his poor treatment of her. Maybe he'd already done the same to the whole world.

Instead he turned his attention fully on the young girl next to him. "Are you okay?"

"Her daddy was shot in the back," the woman across from them said. Her manner was carelessly nonchalant and somehow that made the words sound worse. "Her daddy was a thief and a rioter, responsible for all kinds of destruction and death, ain't that so, little girl? Shot in the back trying to escape, and that's why she's here. They think maybe they can still get some information worth something out of her."

In the moment that Merlin tried to collect his reaction, restrain his shock and the logical guess that her loss and imprisonment were connected, which meant the pain of her orphaning was recent, Freya had turned her back on him, also.

He didn't know people. Didn't know what to say to make things better for her.

So he said nothing, and only waited for her to realize that no matter what it felt like, she wasn't alone.

…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

Freya couldn't curl any tighter, breathing hard against the heat of humiliation and the smell of her own unwashed body, trying to still the urge to scream an attack of her own. To find the words to hurt Tandy as she felt hurt, to push Merlin back with the others, behind the walls that kept the worst of the emotional pain at bay since her father had left her alone.

And at the same time, a scared-alone part of her wanted to keep him as a sort of father-replacement, someone who cared how she felt on the inside and the outside alike, someone who would listen and understand and be with her. A friend?

She was aware of him, right next to her on the other side of the cage-panel.

He'd retreated and hidden as much as physically possible in the swine-trailer hours earlier, and maybe for the same reason. Discovery of a secret maybe shameful and maybe dangerous and nothing he had any control over, any more than she'd had over who her father was or what he did. Or his death…

Merlin seemed gentle and innocent in comparison to the other prisoners, the other revolutionaries that had associated with her father. Nervous a bit at his surroundings – and who wouldn't be; she felt terror and despair pluck at her whenever she considered it, too – but not overwhelmed. His thick dark hair still endearingly disheveled, eyes an intriguing shift of light and dark blue – she couldn't bear to see disappointment or disgust there. Maybe she'd only known him for a few hours, but these days of agonizing loss and loneliness, danger and uncertainty, her heart and spirit gripped in a vise of unrelieved and hopeless misery, had served to make her appreciate even a spark of kindness. Make her want to grasp at whatever scraps of companionship were offered her.

Moments passed and she calmed gradually, wariness eased and the need to guard her heart from verbal attack passed. She listened to the other prisoners without trying to understand their words, soothed back into a protective obscurity by their complaints and demands – ignored by their jailers in a desultory way. But when Merlin said her name in a questioning way, she couldn't help risking a glance. And those eyes were still clear and sympathetic, not clouded by belief in her guilt, or her father's.

"It wasn't like that," she whispered. "What they said… it wasn't like that." She didn't dare say more. Sharing information wouldn't be safe for either of them, once they reached their destination and interrogation began.

They were interrupted from further exchange by a great metallic slam and shudder from the front of the vehicle, and an increase in the volume of their captors' conversation – quarreling again, it sounded like to her.

"Will you get off my back, Dottie?" Gwaine said irritably. "I can fix the engine or tend the prisoners, but I can't do both at once!"

He stalked into sight, heading down toward the rear of the trailer where the rations and water-barrel were stowed, scowling at the ground in front of his feet. Paying them no mind at all, Freya believed, until he suddenly halted, stepping back and away to point down at the earth just beside and below Merlin's cage, hand and forefinger smeared black with grease.

"Looks like the new one is the real McCoy, Dottie!" he yelled to the bounty hunter, out of their sight around the front of the semi. "You shouldn't meddle there. It ain't right to lock up someone like that."

"I don't pay you for your opinion, Gwaine!" she hollered back.

"That one was free, then!"

The bounty hunter finally came into view around the cab of the semi, hands on black-clad hips, her artificially pink hair fairly crackling with tension and temper. The strap of her rifle slung casually over one shoulder. "If you ain't gonna follow orders, you ain't gonna get paid at all! Now get busy, we've already wasted too much time!"

Gwaine growled and headed for the rear of the trailer to let down the back ramp-panel again. Freya's attention was distracted from the noise and the expectation of getting something to eat and the chance at least to use a pail – Merlin probably the sort to turn his back if asked, she hoped – by Dottie stepping right up to them.

It was surprising to Freya, the flood of furious anger – and yes, probably hate – that rushed through her, seeing the bounty hunter so close, hearing the woman's voice so clearly. She who had so casually lifted the weapon, aimed, pulled the trigger that ended Freya's life. Just, not so effectively as her father's. A crippling wound, that loss. She wanted to reach through the panels, tear the bounty hunter's face and eyes with her nails – and at the same time, feared to draw Dottie's attention. Feared she could just as casually lift her rifle to sight on Freya.

Merlin retreated toward the middle of the trailer with the instinctive shyness of a wild thing, as the pink fluff of Dottie's hair dipped in bending over. She straightened with a surprising handful of lush green blades of grass in her fist.

"You did this?" she demanded of Merlin, who kept his head down and his arms tucked tight to his chest and wouldn't meet her eyes.

It felt odd to Freya that the storm of violent emotion that she felt should be invisible to Dottie. That the bounty hunter should so forget her, discount her and ignore her.

Dottie only cackled and tossed the handful of grass at the side of the trailer. "Cash money, boy," she said, turning to saunter in the direction Gwaine had taken. "You're my windfall, this year."

Merlin hung his head, like he was trying to hide again, and Freya felt a pang of resentment and impatience that made her feel guilty. She turned her eyes instead on the few green blades that had fluttered through the openings in the trailer wall. How long had it been since she had seen grass that color? She reached without thinking, trying to touch it through the panel between his cage and hers. Couldn't quite reach – she startled as he scooted to pick them up silently and offer them to her fingers, though still with his eyes down.

"I grew up in… St. Louis," she whispered, inhaling deeply of the faint spicy scent of torn greenery. "A high-rise community next to the river. Tailors and cobblers, mostly. We went… months, without even leaving the building. There was a… park. Twenty blocks away, we counted once. And they made it an oat-field, so you couldn't walk through at all, just… look. Sometimes."

By the sound of it, Gwaine was coming closer with their noontime meal-rations. Drinking water, and refuse pail. She thought both Dalmer and Tandy were intent on his progress, not paying them much mind. Maybe Merlin thought the same thing.

"I hide from people," he whispered back, with a shy glance from those clear blue eyes. And maybe his hair was messy and his cheekbones a little too sharp in a face a little too thin, maybe he didn't act like the man he looked, maybe his blood was green and both of them doomed to a short term of torment or a long term of incarceration before death, but it surprised her to realize, she liked him. "From everyone… except Gaius."

"Who's that?" she asked.

"The old man who took us in, my mother and me. He raised me, taught me…"

"Is he waiting for you to come home?" she ventured, and he nodded.

She had no hope to spare, but she could reach his fingertips, and so dared to brush them. Maybe allowing herself to care about someone would only make it worse when they reached the end of their road – but then again, maybe the journey wouldn't seem quite so terrible if she had a friend.

"Hey, have you got a name I can call you?" Gwaine was outside Merlin's cage now, rattling the key in the lock.

"Merlin."

"Okay, Merlin, since you're new, I have to warn you. You can jump me and try to run, but Dottie's waiting outside with her rifle and–" Abruptly he glanced at Freya, who couldn't help shivering in reaction, and the levity disappeared from his voice. "She's – ah, a very good shot. And, she won't care if I'm a hostage, she'll shoot you through me. So… just behave?"

"All right," Merlin said. He accepted the first bucket carefully and turned away; Freya and Gwaine turned away as well.

Gwaine whistling a snatch of tune between his teeth to ease the embarrassment a little, like he always did, as the newest prisoner finished with the first bucket. Freya kept her eyes averted, as the two young men traded buckets, til Merlin gulped down his first cupful of clean water.

"You get two," Gwaine reminded him, about the water.

Merlin poured his second cupful of water into his palm, cleaning that strange green bloodstain from his hands, then rubbed them gingerly over his face. Freya scooted closer, interested in his answer in spite of herself; she noticed that some of the green remained in his skin – bruising, then, she supposed.

"You know, Gwaine," Dalmer drawled mockingly – probably impatient for his turn – "I think we might have found your soft spot."

Without answering, Gwaine handed Merlin his slab of dried bread baked with bits of meat and maybe cheese or dried fruit or vegetables, Freya had never been able to decide for sure.

"What's our ETA, Gwaine, do you know?" Tandy said.

"I'm only coaxing about thirty miles an hour out of this old beast, at best thirty-five," he answered, locking Merlin's panel and bending to Freya's. "We've got one headlight still working and it'll be full moon tonight, but Dottie hates trying to sleep in a moving vehicle. We'll stop tonight and have two, maybe three more hours to drive in the morning."

Freya was clumsy and hot-faced through her own routines, and curled in the far corner with her ration-slab until she felt her body had recovered from the indignity. Think she'd be used to it by now, so glad for a chance not to soil her clothing or her cage that it wouldn't matter how it was done. Merlin had taken the process more in stride, for his first time – then again, she noticed the speed at which his own meal had disappeared, and wondered if he'd had a different distraction.

"Pretty hungry?" she commented. He nodded, and she added, "Gwaine gave us breakfast before we got to Noble Corner."

"I didn't have a chance to eat last night, either," Merlin confessed. "Before…" He paused, then changed the subject, and she wondered what exactly had happened before he'd ended up unconscious over Gwaine's shoulder. "I see what you mean about trusting him." He gestured to Gwaine, nearing the end of the right half of the trailer; they could hear him speaking as cheerfully as ever, from one prisoner to the next.

"I mean, he's not a bad guy," Freya said. "He just… smiles at everyone." She shrugged, and the silence was again absorbed into the grumble-rattle of the engine.

They lurched into movement again, and she couldn't help but think, every minute brought them closer to the end.


	4. The Worries of Life

**Chapter 4: The Worries of Life**

Arthur Pendragon's favorite thing in the world was his Harley-Masterson. A gift from his father when he turned sixteen, left the last year of requisite schooling with educational honors, and started his supervised rise through the ranks of Camelot, his father's company and world. When he became a man, as his father had said.

He loved the Harley because it reminded him of his favorite part of American history – always his favorite subject in school because it allowed, even encouraged his imagination – the Pony Express. Privately he mourned that it was such a short part. Skinny young kids, orphans or as good as, racing dare-devil cross-country, through untamed wilderness and all kinds of weather, chased by wild animals and wild men and the impersonal and uncaring telegraph that was destined to end their freedom and independence.

It was why he'd enjoyed his year with the guards more than any other year spent in any other department of his father's company, absorbing every facet through experience. Patrolling the perimeter fence of Fort Leonard Wood, on foot but mostly on the Harley, he could do his job – a good job, no complaints from his father to listen to during dinner – and let his imagination put him on a live mustang, carrying vital dispatches to the next relay station.

He loved the Harley because it was safe to love the Harley. It was an acceptably-manly love – unlike the three rows of books on the shelves in his bedroom. It was also comfortably incapable of loving him or hating him or pretending or talking about him behind his back. Of ignoring him or ingratiating itself into his favor.

The sun was already lost behind the headquarters building as Arthur down-shifted to a rolling stop on the circular drive up to the main entrance, steadying the Harley with his boots on the ground, long-walking til the bike came to a stop.

One of the lobby attendants pushed open the left-handed of the double glass doors, waiting patiently for Arthur to wheel the machine inside for the night. Which he didn't, immediately, taking a moment to relax into the stillness of dusk and quieted engine.

"Mr. Arthur?" The lobby attendant, a dark-skinned young man with a multiplicity of braids knotted decorously at the nape of his neck, stood patiently trying to gain his attention. "I apologize, sir, but Mrs. Pendragon left word that she wanted to speak with you before dinner, and it's a quarter to six already."

"Thank you, I'm coming." Arthur dismounted the bike, pushing it forward by the handlebars. The attendant held the door open, and Arthur pushed it over the worn rubber of the threshold.

HQ was a long, low building, two full floors and an abbreviated third in the center that was the Pendragon family quarters. The lobby was long and low also. Business rooms in the front – offices and meeting rooms, records storage. In the rear was the more practical storage of food and other supplies. One wing was kitchen and select dining room; second floor was quarters for the highest officials.

Everything else was somewhere else. Security barracks with their own mess hall and showers, Production in the old hospital, Shipping and Receiving warehouses in side-by-side motor-pools - great bay doors and old overhead equipment was all that was left of their original use – the actual fuel station and motor-pool. Post office, newspaper office, even a fort-wide radio station. Health clinic, vault storage for coin money, school and chapel, the maintenance complex, the junk yard, Rations and Market.

The rest of the post was devoted to the fundamentals of existence – flocks and fields and herds. People who tended them, people who tended to the service of people who worked in the specialized disciplines and had private quarters in those places. A double row of buildings comprised the rest of the homes – offices, he thought, at one point – now converted into communal apartments. He'd never been inside one, himself; his childhood friends had always been selectively invited to play here, under supervision.

The Harley he parked on the tiled floor toward the rear of the lobby, where it would wait for him with more patience than his imagined mustang, under the watchful eye of the twenty-four-seven lobby attendants, manning the desk and its hidden firearm.

Their maid, a girl nearly as tall as Arthur and plump – but somehow so shy she seemed smaller and oftentimes nearly unnoticeable – opened to his knock, hiding herself behind the door as he walked in to the main room.

His father hadn't returned to their quarters yet, he could tell by the atmosphere. Always it was charged with tension when his father was present, as if everyone and everything were suddenly sensitive to all their flaws – and half of them unrealized until that moment – hoping to be overlooked but terrified that discovery and humiliation and disappointment was inevitable. Just now there was a restful lull in the air, increased by the dim lighting – electric, but recessed in the plaster of the ceiling – and the twilight outside.

The fabulous blue Oriental rug - with a circular diameter of twenty feet at least, the focal point of the biggest room of the building - was flanked by three full-length couches in matching brown-and-white cow-hide and anchored by a low kidney-shaped plastic table. The two side walls were hidden by various framed pieces of art, colorful shapes in apparent disarray that Arthur had never felt any connection to, side tables with sculptures, lamps, plants, books. The far side of the room was a wall of glass in keeping with the rest of the building's front façade, though it was divided of necessity into several plates of varying sizes, shades, and clarity.

The main room was flanked on the left side by his parents' suite, where he wasn't welcome except by invitation – and that had always been rare. On the right, his own room with the same full-frontal view as this one, but one-third the size. In the center through a narrow, open arch, was the formal dining room. Family-sized only; when his father – and sometimes now, Arthur – dined with guests, it was always downstairs. And in the back corner, the door to Gran's apartment, where the guard was stationed.

A guard he recognized - tall and dark, with a face that seemed all forehead and jaw - from an elite cadre Aredian had formed for the purpose. An armed statue ready to take whatever action was necessary, dealing or receiving mortal wound, to protect the Pendragon family. Not to be looked at or spoken to or identified by name, stationed here so that no hint of impropriety with the younger Mrs. Pendragon – Arthur's mother – might annoy any one of them. Because the elder Mrs. Pendragon – Arthur's gran – was eccentric and insular by choice and past the possibility of gossip.

"My mother wanted to see me?" Arthur said to the maid. She was new, so he didn't know her name; his mother dismissed maids about once a month for various reasons.

She opened her mouth to answer, but was interrupted by another female voice.

"Oh, you're home." His mother appeared in the doorway of the suite, wearing an immaculate burgundy suit, with a straight skirt and matching heeled shoes, fitting an earring – diamond, no doubt – into her left lobe. "You're late," she added, crossing to the kidney table in the middle of the room to claim some other trinket from its cluttered surface – papers, a couple of used cups, a pencil or a pen here and there, some ribbons and fabric samples.

"I'm sorry," he told her; there was nothing else to be said.

"Abby, I need you to do my hair before Mr. Pendragon arrives, and the cooks will be sending up dinner any minute now," she snapped, clicking her way back to the door of her suite.

"Yes'm." The maid's name wasn't Abby – his mother called them all Abby; it was easier than remembering the change, every time – but she followed obediently.

"Mother?" Arthur ventured. "I was told you wanted to–"

"Not me," she tossed over her shoulder. "Gran. And hurry it up. You won't have time to shower or change – you smell like that machine you insist on riding – but your father will not tolerate waiting while the food gets cold."

"Yes, mother."

He turned and headed for the door in the corner, ignoring the live-statue guard that was ignoring him. It was more comfortable for everyone that way.

It had been several months since he'd been in here, too – it smelled, like always, that fresh air hadn't visited in that long, either. Gran's sitting room was as big as his bedroom, but always seemed dim. She collected rugs and they overlapped; the walls were obscured by drapes of colorful cloth and fanciful embroidery and seemed to absorb light.

This room was dominated by the quilting frame, positioned right under the recessed lighting. Long, thin, and high, the strip of pulled-taut cloth was littered with sewing-bits – needles and spools of thread empty and full and in-between, scissors and paper patterns – so that the color and design of the actual quilt-in-progress was obscured. A cabinet for these articles waited at and under one end, patient and unused. The side wall was composed of a long wide countertop with pieces matched, cut and uncut, drawers standing open and spilling fabric and scraps. Gran collected used fabric from all over the Midwest, and this was her hobby and her life, recycling the bits and pieces into a usable whole again. She had a small side table, too, by the back wall of windows, attendant to an overstuffed armchair that could be persuaded to recline with a series of creaky protests – but both that and the straight-backed chair that stood before the quilting frame like a long skinny executive desk, were empty.

"Gran?" he tried softly – if she were lying on the bed, he didn't want to disturb her.

But the word was barely out of his mouth when she appeared in the doorway of the bedroom beyond – as suddenly as a cricket who'd hopped and alighted. She wore black, a long wrist-to-ankles dress with jet buttons that winked like her eyes and used to leave a mark on his face when she hugged him, she always squeezed so tight, and black socks for her only footwear. Though he didn't know whether the color was in consideration of his grandfather that had died before Arthur was born, or for his father's preference. Come to think of it, maybe his father's preference for the color, might have been from the perpetual mourning of _his_ father. But she wore a fringed purple scarf over soft more-pepper-than-salt bubble curls, and she beamed at him.

"Constantine," she said. His grandfather's name.

"No, it's Arthur," he said, watching her closely.

Instead of faltering at the correction, her joy widened, and she hurried – as fast as she was able, she had arthritis in her ankles – across to take his face in her hands. "I know that," she declared, giving his cheeks the squish and shake that she always did, and he endured for old times' sake and love of her. "I was checking to see that _you_ remembered."

She retreated in a shuffle to her armchair, and he wandered a few steps further into the room. "You're not sewing today?"

"There was a long brown-out," she told him, lowering herself slowly into the chair, relaxing with a sigh. "Your father's going to have to send someone out to check the turbines again."

"I'm sorry," he said, involuntarily reverting to the instinctive response he made to his parents.

"Don't be," she said. "It made me remember that I wanted to talk to you. Drag that chair over here. How long has it been? You look well, brown as a berry." He smiled at her odd habitual expression, bringing the straight-backed chair out from behind the quilt-frame, carrying it closer to the window and her chair so the legs wouldn't snag on any of her rugs.

"Summer," he said for explanation, relaxing on the needlepoint cushion and eyeing the sunset out her wall of windows appreciatively.

She hummed pleasantly. "Now, what was it you came here to ask me about, young man?"

"Arthur," he reminded her; she gave him an archly-raised brow and a knowing smile – whether that meant she was teasing or not, he wasn't sure. "Sorry, but… um, Gran, you asked me here."

"So I did!" she exclaimed, bright and energetic as a chipmunk. "Yes, now I remember. I wanted to talk to you about worrying."

He felt his eyebrows rise in spite of himself. In spite of the fact that he thought he'd gotten used to her left-field topics of conversation. "Worrying?" he repeated carefully, incredulously. "What do I have to worry about?"

The minute the question passed his lips, he regretted it, so many answers leaped to mind. Meeting his father's expectations, learning to run his father's company – and yet someday making his own decisions. And a thousand different details that could be classified under each of those headings.

Gran nodded wisely. "Mm hm. Your mother was worried today."

"She came to see you?" Arthur was surprised; the relationship between the two was amiably perfunctory, nothing heartfelt.

Gran didn't answer the question, crossing her black-stockinged ankles and folding her hands sedately in her lap. "What do you suppose your mother worries about?"

He answered immediately, striving to keep his voice even and his words fair. "New clothes. Her makeup, her hair. Shoes and handbags."

Gran nodded placidly. "Her appearance," she agreed. "But _why_."

Arthur leaned back in the chair. That was a question he'd not really pondered before. "For – my father," he said haltingly, feeling like he'd been called on in class to explain a lesson he hadn't studied. "He likes her to look pretty – he likes other people to think she looks pretty."

"Attractive," Gran said knowingly. "And young."

Arthur looked at her, feeling the faint frown on his face, the truth of her statement in his heart. All his mother's talk about the limited fashions available, the expense of materials and dressmakers and designers, all that bored and embarrassed him at the dinner table – it was for his father's benefit? To keep his interest?  
"What is she afraid of?" Gran whispered.

"That she isn't enough for him," Arthur heard himself say. He turned his head to look out the window, at the last fading strip of orange and pink on the horizon; it was a strange disconnected thing, to be so evaluating his parents, like they were all equals. All adults.

"Why wouldn't she be enough for him?" Gran asked.

The immediate answer that jumped to his mind was, _Because nothing ever is_. He said nothing aloud, and she went on.

"What does your father worry about?"

That was easy, too. "Numbers. Times and schedules, shipments and weights and deliveries. Fort Leonard Wood running smoothly, everyone doing their job."

"Yes, but why."

"Because – it's best for everyone when there aren't problems or concerns. Everyone gets what they need. The – greater good. I guess you could say."

Gran sat back in her chair, the bulging cushions made her look small instead of plump. "That was true of your grandfather," she said with satisfaction, "my husband. Your father was – nine years old, when the Collapse started. The violence was immediate, on the coasts and in the cities. It took a few months for us to feel it out here, but your grandfather was a man of science and medicine and peace and faith, and we lived in a small town. We were protected, for the most part – and then there was the fertilizer project. Your father, however…"

She sighed in the moment of silence, delicate and sad as a butterfly's last flutter.

"His childhood probably held much uncertainty and fear. Instability, danger – we moved around a lot, we missed meals sometimes. Most everyone did in those days. Your father did not have _his_ father's scientific brilliance or training – but he did his best with Pendragon fertilizer as a business, do you see? Because what he fears is chaos. The idea that if he doesn't control the world, no one does or no one will. Or it will be like California, a series of rulers, each worse than the last. A hell of violence and starvation."

"I should think everyone would fear that," Arthur managed.

She hummed agreement with the sentiment, but he suspected she didn't include herself in that _everyone_. "And me, then," she continued, smiling cheerfully. "What do you suppose I worry about?"

He glanced around the room. Colors and patterns and lengths and shapes – it was her occupation, what she did, but he'd never seen her _worry_ over any of it. She scooted forward in the armchair to the very edge of the seat, bobbing gently as its greater weight rocked behind her at the motion. Reaching out one wrinkled hand, she cupped his face, jet eyes twinkling with unshed tears, even as she beamed.

"It's you," she said. "I worry about you, and fear for you."

"But why, Gran?" he said, confused. "We're as safe as we can possibly be, there's always plenty of food. Father is young still and healthy, and even when it's time for me to take the company, all I've got to do is follow the schedules and routines already laid out."

"And that is why I worry for you," she declared, cuffing his chin gently as she straightened and returned her hands to her lap. "Life is so much more…"

The door opened, and he turned though she didn't. The sphinx-like guard declared, "Dinner."

Arthur stood, asking Gran, "Are you coming?"

She shook her head, her eyes roaming the room vaguely. "I have work to do – I'll eat in a little while."

He leaned to kiss the purple scarf at the top of her forehead. "I'll see you later, then."

…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

Merlin didn't sleep that night.

At sundown they'd stopped, the trailer with its human cargo parked in the middle of what was left of the road. After their own needs were minimally and humiliatingly met, all the prisoners on Merlin's side had watched through the openings in the metal panels as Dottie supervised Gwaine in setting up camp a stone's intentional throw away. Bedding carried and laid out, fire started and tended, dinner assembled and cooked.

Gwaine did all the work, Merlin noticed in a dull sort of way, while the bounty hunter only watched, and wondered if that was because Dottie controlled Gwaine's pay, or the gun.

He had never been so close to one before. There were a few firearms in Yelder's Hollow, he was aware, but seldom used. He had the impression that the equipment – like Gaius's knife still hidden in his boot – could be taken care of, cleaned and repaired and so on, but that ammunition would be harder to come by. Maybe that was why he couldn't summon any sense of awe or fear, looking at the slim angled weapon slung over Dottie's shoulder. She might as well have been carrying a stick, for all the effect it had on him.

For Freya it was different, though. Merlin had noticed the girl's reaction to Dottie and the rifle. It was anger and it was fear and it was loss, pure and _close_.

She was sleeping now – had been for a couple of hours – curled up on the floor of her cage, head pillowed on bent arm. He had the feeling she resisted falling asleep; she'd tried to talk to Merlin, but they didn't have much in common, and so many topics led back to the uncomfortable circumstances of their imprisonment and the great jagged uncertainty of what would come tomorrow. That, and the other two closest prisoners moaned and complained and finally swore at them to _shut up!_ so they could sleep in peace and quiet.

Peace and quiet, Merlin reflected ironically, with an upward glance at the slats separating his and Freya's cage from the man above them. He was snoring like a bear, rough and heavy and loud. But that wasn't why Merlin was awake.

He stretched and shifted his position; the cage was too small for his length, the sparse straw not enough to pad the wooden planking. That in itself was not a reason for wakefulness either; he slept on the ground more often than a bed, and usually curled up rather than sprawled out – as far as he knew, anyway.

But his attention was mostly focused outside the trailer, rather than on any of his cell-mates. The moon glowed silver-full - the distance soft and vague, everything nearby clear shadow on glow on shadow - supplemented by the orange firelight of Dottie and Gwaine's circle. They were asleep as well, he thought, wrapped in odd thick blankets that looked as though they had been sewn together to cocoon a person tightly. Dottie on one side of the coal-glow, Gwaine on the other, and both motionless.

Merlin moved his hand and pressed the hard handle of Gaius's knife into the back of his anklebone inside his boot. Alone and in relative silence, he couldn't help _thinking_.

He was still on his way to Camelot in Fort Leonard Wood. And far faster than he could have traveled on foot. If nothing else, he was quite sure he was going to discover firsthand what had been done with – or to – the others like him. The green-knights. His father.

He wouldn't pretend, though, that instinct didn't still press him to escape. Run and hide, and if he still decided to observe Camelot – and he did, he felt, in spite of the unexpected fear and pain he'd encountered in his capture – he'd do it on his own terms. Creep up unseen, slow and stealthy.

But. Even with the man above him sawing logs fit to cover the sounds he would make sawing metal with the knife, Merlin figured he'd have to sever at least six of the metal stripes before he could bend them and create a hole big enough to worm through. If that could be accomplished with no one alerting – and he rather suspected, another prisoner discovering him would be just as bad – would he sprint alone into the darkness? Could he?

A soft snuffle drew his eyes sideways, and he watched Freya's fine brows draw together in the shining moonlight striping her sleeping body. A nightmare, maybe, he wouldn't be surprised. She was very young to lose her father violently and end up in a situation like this, without being affected. Merlin had no idea of the right and wrong of her case. He could admit the argument, if her father had been a lawbreaker, authorities would desire to question her – on those activities or her knowledge of other crimes, on his associates. Even if she herself was innocent of wrongdoing. He wasn't to judge the guilt or innocence of any of the others. But his stomach twisted to think of gaining his freedom and leaving her behind to face her fate alone. To think of her waking to his empty cell and the selfish hole cut for his freedom alone.

_What do I do?_ he asked the earth. The stones, the stunted stubborn underbrush, the crabbed lonely trees. _What do I do?_ he asked the sky, the few stars confident enough to show their light alongside their ruler. No one answered him. A late breeze sighed past the trailer, flickering the last low flames of the hunters' campfire, and Merlin pressed his face to an opening to breathe the fresh dampness and feel its touch like a caress on his face.

And then he noticed, one of the blanket-bound forms by the firelight was stirring.

He watched without any great interest as Gwaine sat up. Straight up, without squirming or shuffling, and kept his head turned to watch his employer. For the space of ten breaths – Merlin knew, he counted – before Gwaine turned his head again, to face the trailer. Of course at that distance Gwaine couldn't see anything more than gleaming metal and the slashes of the darker interior, but it did seem to Merlin as though the other young man was looking specifically and deliberately at him. For several moments, then he turned his gaze back on the sleeping Dottie, and crawled out of his bedroll. It seemed to Merlin, with intentional and successful stealth.

His eyes still on Dottie – who didn't stir – Gwaine stepped to the edge of their campsite, bending to lift one of the packs by a strap. Carrying it oddly awkwardly, away from his body and pendant from his hand, he moved toward the trailer.

Silently, Merlin realized; he couldn't hear Gwaine any better, the closer he got.

He believed he was the only one of the prisoners still awake, therefore, the only one aware of the minute tremors through the metal of his cage caused by – he guessed – Gwaine's boots up the ramp, left open for the night and the air. Curious, he slid to the inside of his cage with a quiet shuffle. To his interest, Gwaine – shadow and brief knife-edge of moonlight – paced all the way down the walkway, halting twice at some noise from another prisoner that alerted him.

To Merlin. Where he crouched and peered in and didn't seem surprised that Merlin was upright and open-eyed. Fishing down the collar of his shirt, he pulled out the key to the locks on all their cells. When he spoke, it was little more than a breath, but Merlin disbelieved his ears for another reason. Because what he'd heard the bounty hunter's assistant say, didn't make sense.

"I'm going to let you go."

…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

It wasn't that Gwaine didn't believe in miracles; he _did_.

The ground hard beneath his back under his olive-drab military-style sleeping bag, the night air cool against the left side of his face while the glow of their dying campfire warmed his right ear as he gazed up at the midnight-blue of the night sky, contemplating miracles. Of course, with his face turned just enough so Dottie wouldn't see his eyes were open, and would assume from his stillness and deep slow breathing, that he was asleep. And go to sleep herself.

Those stars, though, shyly twinkling through the moonbeams. Pretty miraculous themselves – he'd been told that outer space went on and on forever without end, and he believed it, even if he couldn't rationally comprehend it. The same way he believed in miracles.

As a boy – toddler to teen – he'd been the first audience for Granddad's stories. Maybe it had been the magnetic pull of patient male companionship and love, those long weeks and months Gwaine's soldier-father was called by duty elsewhere in the great country of Texas, his grown brothers busy about their own jobs – but he'd loved to sit on the bare dirt of the corral ground and listen to Granddad tale-tell, as he strode the fence line.

He'd believed from the very first word, the fantastic stories of Granddad's script, the miracles, the heroes – historic, legendary, mythic. Through his growing-up years, he'd never questioned the truth of it all. Whether the stories happened, or the way Granddad described or not, Gwaine had heard what was _true_, the same as gravity and smelly socks were true.

Gwaine just never thought he'd experience something like those legends firsthand.

Now that he was – he resisted the urge to shift inside his sleeping bag, warm and relatively comfortable, with room to _stretch_ – it made him uneasy. To think of that backwoods boy Merlin – where'd he come from? where was he going? how much of his world and the people in it and the way it was run did he truly understand? – and his green blood.

Uneasy, because now he faced a choice.

To Gwaine, his life had never held choices. To him, it was only clear logic, a privilege to learn every lesson his soldier-father could be persuaded to teach, the rare days he was at home. It hadn't been a choice for him to apprentice to the mechanic in South Mountain when he'd absorbed as much education as had been deemed necessary – skill and inclination ran for that shop with its tools and smells and puzzles and solutions as fast as oversized boots through cactus-y dust after school. And, it had been the only job opportunity in town, if he didn't want to go off soldiering.

It hadn't even been much of a choice, last year when his father returned from a tour of the northeast border with a different offer. Leave Texas for the American states. Work for the bounty hunter that came for prisoners the Texans picked up trying to flee justice by crossing the border. Travel and learn, expand horizons geographically as well as professionally. It didn't bother him much or very deeply, that Dottie turned out to be a stuck-up witch, demanding and arrogant and condescending. It wasn't forever, and he was content in the now.

Except… _Now_ included a genuine, in-the-flesh green-knight. Locked in their trailer for no crime whatsoever, headed for the shadowy rumors of Fort Leonard Wood and Camelot, where he'd be swallowed whole likely as not, and be lucky to have his bones spat back out for any friends or relatives to identify and lay to rest.

And he, Gwaine, fully capable and perfectly placed to do something about it. Not to hear it as another story, to shake his head over the tragedy of an innocent's fate and the stupidity of the other characters that hadn't prevented it.

He, Gwaine. Who was he going to be in this story? A bystander, guilty through inaction? A pawn of the antagonists? Whatever else was true of Camelot or the Americans, at least he was sure there was a good, moral, legal reason why all those _other_ cages were locked.

But to do anything else… He imagined Dottie's temper, discovering that single cage empty. Would she believe a lie if he tried to claim a miracle for the miracle? She could shoot and bury Gwaine out here. And everyone else would believe whatever lie she told. She could fire him, turn him over to Pendragon as a criminal himself… Could he make a grab for the gun she slept on top of, fight a woman for their sole firearm and then threaten her with it – and then walk the three hundred fifty miles back to his own border, hoping that an arrest warrant wouldn't catch up with him, or be waiting for him when he got there?

Gwaine gazed into the endlessness of space, decorated and punctuated with the tantalizing twinkle of enormous burning globes trillions of miles away. So he was part of a story, at last_._ But what when that might include some pretty bad stuff personally?

His mind was made up before he knew it. And it was a simple thing after that, really, for his body to follow through. Stealthily he sat upright, watching Dottie for any indication that her sleep was disturbed. Satisfied, he disentangled himself from his sleeping bag and made his way – carefully silent – from their campsite. Merlin's pack had been unloaded with the other baggage – nothing had interested Dottie except for a few coins, the homemade granola, and the pack itself; the green-knight's other supplies were all there. He snagged it as he prowled forward, holding it away from his body so no rubbing of cloth might sound.

At the foot of the ramp he set it down again, peered down the long narrow dark row of crude cages. He didn't imagine he'd made any friends there, or that any of them would hesitate to take him for the key around his neck – killing or silencing him only – while Dottie did _not_ wait to shoot any who might emerge unauthorized down the ramp. But it was best that none of them knew this job tonight as his, either.

The ramp was the risk, but he was up it quickly, the rubber tread of his military boots near-silent, though his weight did move the structure of the trailer a bit. Too bad the green-knight wasn't closer to the exit. Gwaine moved forward, a shadow in shadow, pausing twice to make sure a small sound – rustle or sigh – was made unconsciously, in sleep.

And then he was at the end, crouching to be closer to the lock on Merlin's cage – where the younger man knelt as if waiting for him. Calm and patient and fearless.

Gwaine smiled in the darkness and told him softly, "I'm going to let you go."

But Merlin's fingers reached through one of the slits of the cage, to prevent his access to the lock. He said, in the same near-silent whisper, "What about her?"

Gwaine knew immediately who he meant. A trick of fate or destiny – or even his own interference, asking her to watch the green-knight wake from the snagger – but the only place to put the unexpected prisoner had been next to the girl. Honestly, he'd have been more surprised to find that the two _hadn't_ made friends.

"I can't," he answered, keeping his voice quiet. "Her, we have a contract for. No criminal charges, just questioning."

Merlin turned his head to look at her through their dividing panel; Gwaine couldn't see her from this angle. Intentionally or not, Merlin's fingers were still in the way of the key. And then he said, "I can't leave her here."

"I can't let her go!" Gwaine hissed, impatient. "You I can try to excuse – if _she's_ gone, Dottie will know it was me, and there'll be serious trouble!"

Merlin turned back and met his eyes through the narrow cage-openings. And the mild serenity in his eyes as they caught the moonlight, caught at him, too. Prophets, some had said about Merlin's kind. Then why was he trying to argue against something a prophet wanted him to do?

Maybe, though… it wouldn't be so bad if he could imply her cage had been opened and emptied through _negligence_ on his part, rather than intent. He'd be in trouble, but only for stupidity. Which was, arguably, deserved at this point.

"All _right_," he growled.

Merlin drew his hand back; Gwaine released the lock as quickly and quietly as he could, then shuffled sideways to attend to the lock on the girl's cage as Merlin emerged tentatively from his prison. Freya was sleeping still, and Gwaine decided to leave any further assistance to Merlin.

"I've left your–" he started, pushing himself upright, but that was all the farther he got.

Fingers brushed at his nape - nails clawed his skin and caught on the chain he wore.

And in the blink of an eye he found himself trapped against the upper cage, the thin line of the key-chain blocking air from his lungs and blood from his brain, the oblong cut-outs of the cell wall digging a pattern into his back. He flailed, scratching at the too-tight line across his neck, trying to get his fingers _behind_ it-

For a brief instant he saw Merlin, crouched in alarm in the shadow-and-moonlight walkway, just beyond arm's reach. And Gwaine knew in the last flash of clarity, what he would do – the green-knight would flee like a wild thing. He didn't blame him for that, the instinct for flight, not fight. Gwaine was on his own.

_Quiet!_ he thought at his own protesting noise and movement, trying to scrabble at the fingers reaching through the cage to strangle him. And simultaneously, _Make noise! Dottie'll wake and come with the rifle and_ -

Shoot them, or him, or both, but would she care that he couldn't breathe?

Increasingly groggy from lack of oxygen, Gwaine sucked sudden and limited air, and felt the brush of a whisper pass his face. All was dark, but stars exploded silently inside the trailer – his body was clumsy and uncoordinated like he was hog-tied inside a burlap sack.

Was he dying? He was dying. In a minute his whole body was going to fight back instinctively – kicking wildly, noisily – except, there was a little air, enough air. And maybe if he kept still – it was impossible to keep completely still, but maybe if he _tried_ – he'd be allowed to cling to that thread of life a while longer, long enough to –

Someone else stepped close to him; he felt someone else's fingers at his collar, and a faint click. _Key_, part of his mind whispered, as the rest screamed, _Air! Air air air breathe need to breathe let me go let me…!_

Gwaine gulped a little more and his sight cleared momentarily and it wasn't Merlin facing him of course but Tandy the multiple-murderess, with murder in her eyes. He gasped and choked and couldn't help thinking of the knife in the side pocket of his trousers – but he couldn't spare his hands from the strangling chain at his throat to fend her off, and it drew him up to the toes of his boots so he couldn't kick.

Tandy's fist flashed out, and he couldn't do anything about it other than squint and brace. Pain exploded at the side of his face in yellow stars that resulted in water-weak joints, but not unconsciousness.

More voices, hissing whispers – the chain was released abruptly but there was no strength in muscles or bones to hold him. He slid earthward in a confusion of bruised knees and elbows – not all of which seemed to belong to him, he felt proximity to someone else's warm muscle and sinew - and spinning yellow stars.

His single attempt to rise, to recover, was feeble and uncoordinated, and met with a second – harder, decisive – blow. And he was out like a snuffed candle.


	5. Freedom of Choice

**Chapter 5: Freedom of Choice**

Merlin froze in panic as Gwaine choked.

The knuckles and teeth of the prisoner in the cage above Freya gleamed evilly in the moonlight, and the harsh, small sounds that squeezed from Gwaine's throat skittered sick and terrified along Merlin's nerves. Every instinct screamed to flee.

But Gwaine fought to breathe and the prisoner's fingers stretched and clawed at the neck of Merlin's rescuer through the narrow openings in the cage and Freya was still trapped…

Merlin, trembling with a fear that felt shameful, said aloud, "Stop. Stop it."

"Scream for Dottie," the prisoner hissed. "He'll be dead before her finger finds that trigger – and then the shooting will start – and when that's over, you and your little girl will still be caught!"

"Dalmer," the woman across the aisle whispered, startling Merlin at least. "Wait. You, kid – you get that key from around his neck, quick and quiet, and unlock us, and Dalmer will let Gwaine go."

But he hadn't yet. Merlin had seen, a handful of times, a predator make a kill. Gwaine's body was making the same helpless-involuntary flapping movements of the dying prey.

"Let him breathe, and I will," Merlin whispered.

For a minute he thought it was, no deal - then Gwaine was gasping, gulping air, struggling - but only minimally, as if he too feared to make the noise that would wake the bounty hunter. _She'll shoot you through me_, Merlin remembered.

"Hurry up, kid," the woman urged.

He moved close to Gwaine, felt at his throat, found the key on some sort of clip, digging into soft warm flesh – pulse making the same fluttering motions beneath Merlin's fingers. He squeezed and twisted a bit desperately, and the key came away in his hand.

"Hurry _up_."

Merlin couldn't think of anything more clever to do. He knelt, fumbling for the lock, and the woman's fingers snaked out to claim both parts, working them expertly even in the dark and from the wrong side. Merlin straightened and took a step back, to the end of the aisle. Gwaine was still resisting, but it sounded like the prisoner – Dalmer – was letting just enough air pass. Merlin couldn't see if Freya had woken or not; Gwaine's legs were blocking the door of her cage.

"Got it!" the woman hissed triumphantly, slipping out of her cell and rising to her feet, the gleam of silver key in her hand.

"Let him go, now," Merlin said. His heart was hammering so hard he heard it above any other sound, _saw_ it like a film over his eyes; he was panting like his own lungs couldn't expand on a decent breath. "Let him go."

The woman didn't hesitate. With all the ferocity and deadly intent of the two combatants Merlin had witnessed in the town center where he'd been captured, she threw her entire body into attack. A single punch, wetly solid, and Gwaine's body went limp, twitching unfocused and ineffective motion.

Merlin grabbed him awkwardly as Dalmer released the chain and Gwaine just _dropped_. But it was dark and cramped and Gwaine was heavy; they sagged tangled down the unbroken metal wall at the end of the row, as the woman worked the key in Dalmer's lock. Merlin heard hisses and whispers from further down the prisoner-trailer, then, others waking and demanding to participate in this unexpected and stolen freedom.

The woman retreated, and Dalmer lowered himself from cell to aisle – malevolently enormous black shadow blocking their own escape. He bent to feel at the tangle of Merlin's legs and Gwaine's as if searching for something, and Merlin thought of Gaius's knife in his boot. He kicked out instinctively – not in attack or even defense, only protest at that liberty taken. Dalmer hissed in irritation, but stopped at the sound of Freya's frantic whisper.

"You leave them alone or I'll scream for Dottie! Just leave them alone!"

The door of her cage pushed open against the side of Merlin's right knee, further hindering Dalmer. Down the row, squeaks of metal and other whispers sounded, confirming Merlin's suspicions of a mass exodus. Dalmer cursed, shoving the door back against her. Merlin couldn't help cowering, back and down as far as he could as the huge prisoner loomed; Dalmer braced himself with a muscular arm against each wall in the narrow aisle and raised his foot to kick Gwaine viciously – sodden crunch and pained grunt.

Merlin hoped it wasn't the other boy's face. He was afraid it was.

But then Dalmer was retreating as well, and the urgent rustle of freed criminality faded toward the far ramp and door-space.

"Hurry, oh hurry!" Freya sobbed, scrambling from her cell. "They'll kill Dottie – they'll come back for him – and us–"

It felt like Merlin's innards were panicking, twisting and writhing, but leaving arms and legs cold and heavy, his head thick and woolly. "Grab his legs."

"What?" she hissed, hovering like she wanted to turn tail and make a dash for her own freedom, but didn't yet dare.

A shout rose from outside, answered by another, and then a jumble of voices whose tenor raised the hair on Merlin's neck and forearms.

"Help me with him!" he said. "Please!"

A sudden sharp noise, like one plank slapped against another, made him cringe. Freya let out a shriek and crumpled – or ducked – and then Gwaine's body lurched away from Merlin's grip. Not under his own power, but hers.

"Come on!" she moaned. "Come on come on come on!"

Merlin clambered awkwardly to knees to feet, arms occupied holding Gwaine's limbs under his, as Freya tugged them forward by the other man's ankles.

Again that sharp noise, that seemed to cut through the air and reverberated through Merlin's nerves, already unsettled by the screaming of more than one person – rage and pain, both. He couldn't see clearly to the side, to the campfire, through the walls of the trailer; the shadows were wild, threatening, and insubstantial.

They bumped and clattered down the trailer to the ramp. Freya was out first and Merlin saw her head turn toward the commotion of shouts.

Abruptly she dropped Gwaine's feet and took a step back. Right off the ramp, tumbling over an object that Merlin recognized because he kept his eyes on her fall - and Gwaine's fall right after because she'd let go, and his weight dragged away from Merlin's clutch.

"Grab the pack!" Merlin hissed at Freya. "Don't look don't look – grab it and go!"

He lowered Gwaine's shoulders quickly and clumsily, then leaped over and down off the side of the ramp, fumbling to get the unconscious body over his shoulder, elbow hooked around Gwaine's knees. Freya was whimpering with every breath, but she had his pack hugged in her arms.

_Flee_! the entire world screamed to his soul. _Flee_!

He risked a glance. Six or eight figures more or less upright - but _not_ one with shocking pink hair – fighting each other and ransacking the campsite. The fire flared with fresh fuel, smoke and sparks. But no one was looking their way.

Instinctively he kept the trailer between him and the hellishly firelit scene, stumbling into the safety of darkness and the wilderness. South, he thought vaguely. After a moment, he couldn't see the fire-glare around the outline of the trailer's shadow; and he could hear nothing over his own harsh panting and his boots scraping through dirt and the occasional briar anyway.

"Is – anyone – following?" he managed once.

Freya moaned. Then, "No… no."

The nauseating energy of panic ebbed, leaving a heavy sort of dread like a nightmare – when fleeing was as vital as a heartbeat, but increasingly impossible to accomplish. Merlin felt like he was trying to breathe with only one lung, his body twisted and compressed beneath his burden – never enough air, but stopping wasn't an option. His entire body ached, over-strained muscles and bruises. His knees jarred with every staggering step, and it felt like all connective tissue in his ankles had dissolved – any minute now the delicately-stacked parts would come crashing down in rubble.

One more step. He kept expecting to reach the limit of endurance, then found himself capable of one more step.

Until Freya pleaded from behind him, "Merlin, stop. Please can we stop? I can't… I can't…"

He didn't try to turn; the darkness was only faintly gray from moonlight, he could see nothing of their surroundings, hostile or hospitable or indifferent. And once he'd paused, weariness dumped on him like a load of deep-winter snow from a pine bough.

"No one's coming?" he ground out hoarsely. He couldn't even turn around, now, staying upright took everything he had.

"No one's coming."

Numbly he dropped to his knees – dropped Gwaine, still unconscious but also still warm – dropped with him in a tangle to the earth. And it felt like nothing so much as _bed_. Briefly he shifted his body away from Gwaine's, and couldn't think of a reason to get up again.

He felt Freya creep up behind him, huddled against his back. Distantly he realized that she was weeping – identified it as fear or exhaustion, rather than pain – but it didn't last long.

Though he didn't know, which one of them fell asleep first.

…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

As Gwaine woke, he heard himself make a childishly grouchy sound of protest.

He was sore to his bones, head throbbing in a way to make him doubt all five senses, but he was pretty sure he was sprawled on the ground. Hard surface, but under the open sky, the stiff chill of early morning out-of-doors. Birdsong, faintly. As awareness blossomed slowly to his reluctantly conscious control, he blinked up at the high dim gray of an hour or so until dawn.

Then he turned his head, grinding dirt into his hair and knots into the muscles of his neck and shoulders, and thought he must have been wrong about his groan being audible.

Merlin, the green-knight, lay near enough to touch; eyes closed and body motionless, undisturbed by Gwaine's wordless complaint. With his legs drawn up toward his chest and his arms tucked close, he looked very young. Instinct warned Gwaine to quiet, after whatever had happened between his loss of the key around his neck and this morning…

He lifted his hand to his throat, wincing at the tenderness on the outside and trying to work up enough spit to swallow to soothe the sore dryness on the inside. It didn't really work, and his fingertips brushed against something caked on his cheek – he scratched reflexively and winced again at a twinge of fresh pain, checking for and finding the dried blood of a scab under his nails.

Struggling upright, he lifted his shoulders from the ground, forced his spine to bend until he rested on the ground rear and legs only. He slouched over his lap to breathe for a moment; every part of him ached and the bits that stuck out – elbows and knees and shoulders – felt scraped raw, even through his clothes. His hands were trembling, just a bit.

There was nothing to hear; he raised his head to check their surroundings – small, close hills, and they lying in a depression – and noticed the girl.

Freya was curled up even tighter than Merlin, like a traumatized kitten, so the darker stain on her shirtfront that he knew was there, didn't show. She was pale, disheveled, and frowning even in sleep as she sheltered between Merlin and his goatskin pack.

Gwaine took a deep careful breath and felt _safe_ – and so could smile at the sight of the two. Whatever had happened, at least had resulted in freedom for them, and life for all three of them.

Then his attention was caught by the tracks – just beyond their feet – probably made by their passage, last night. He tried, and was able to visually trace the way they'd come til it curved out of sight behind one of the hills that sheltered them. Curiosity and an instinct to recon, probably instilled by his father, had Gwaine gaining his feet. And after a last evaluating glance at the pair of sleeping children – he smiled at himself at the thought – he turned his concentration to the back-trail.

It wasn't too hard to follow, and that began to concern him.

How far had they come, in the darkness? Perhaps Freya could be overlooked by whoever had won control of the situation he, at least, couldn't remember beyond a feeling of panic and impending catastrophe. But it was conceivable that Dottie, or the freed prisoners, whoever was in control, would find reason to come after him or Merlin. Or both.

He kept his head up as he hiked, but caught no one on his horizon, even edging carefully to the summits of the few hills. All was countryside silence, which wasn't really silence – bugs and birds and rustling dry weeds - but nothing alarming to him.

Twice he noticed, the shuffling marks in dust and sparse scrubby crab-grass came very near to a dangerous feature of the landscape. A steep twelve-foot drop-off, and an ankle-threatening rock-strewn slope, only to veer away. More miracles? He wouldn't be surprised.

Then he reached the road.

Empty, as far as he could see in either direction, the semi and trailer gone. Smoke still rose from the fire-pit, teasing his nose with a sickly acrid stench, and Gwaine's steps slowed as he crossed the road, reluctant to approach. The awkwardly-crumpled bundles that first glance had taken for supplies destroyed or discarded – were not supplies. He saw a lower leg, foot to knee, in one place, an outflung hand in another.

His body jerked to a horrified halt, though, the moment he could see what was causing the smoke. Another body. With pink showing in blackened, melted hair.

Gwaine fastened his gaze to the toes of his boots, swallowing convulsively, hoping not to disgrace himself. Long moments – and then he thought, if he didn't get away from the odor lingering in the air, he was going to lose his own battle. And the contents of his stomach.

He turned away, but kept enough composure to retrieve a few items in or near his path as he headed for the road, and the trail that headed back toward the other two. A squashed packet of journey-bread, a garment that turned out to be an unbleached cotton shirt, too small for man-size, maybe belonging to one of the females, that had traded for something belonging to Dottie. A canteen, dented and only half-full and missing the cap, but appearing watertight.

It occurred to him - as he stepped from the cracked, crumbling road to the gravel and the dirt, putting the whole scene behind him and picking up his pace to trot back - to wonder why he was returning to his two former prisoners.

Merlin had probably saved his life, and maybe Freya as well, but it was very possible they'd want nothing to do with him, now. In spite of his own inclination to see that each of them was truly all right, and expected to continue all right – supplied and directed and decided, until they could reach some place more secure, however temporary. Freya was young to be on her own, and Merlin was… a green-knight. Even so, they might resent, rather than welcome, his interference.

But what else was he to do? What happened to Dottie was ultimately his fault – and she had a semi-official position with Camelot. She would be missed, and sought, sooner or later. He'd have to run, or confess… Either way, this chapter of his life was over.

Time for something new?

Both were awake when he returned. Merlin sitting with arms loosely hooked over bent knees and gaze distant, Freya curled up at his side, speaking quietly but not touching him.

She noticed Gwaine first. And in the moment that she only stared, he recalled with an uncomfortable sense of guilt, that same blank, lost look in her eyes when she'd lifted a tear-stained, blood-stained face from the motionless body of her father. The same look she'd worn when he took her upper arms and urged her up and led her somnolent to the trailer, on Dottie's command. The look of the last week since then… until Merlin.

Without breaking eye contact with Gwaine, she leaned forward to nudge Merlin with her shoulder. He glanced up – caught sight of Gwaine hesitating – and his angular face split in a grin that somehow softened Freya's uncertainty to acceptance. And maybe even eased Gwaine's headache, a bit.

"We thought you left," she accused as Gwaine crossed the last few yards to join them.

"I did," he said, forcing cheerfulness; it was funny to feel relieved that the prisoners he'd guarded and kept locked up, didn't hold that against him. Well, not openly, anyway. "I just also came back. If… that's all right with you both. Thanks for… hm, whatever you did, when – whatever happened, happened."

"Yeah," Merlin said, ducking his head like he was embarrassed, as Gwaine dropped to a cross-legged slouch facing them. "I had to give them your key. Sorry."

"Tandy punched you, and Dalmer kicked you in the face," Freya said bluntly. "Then we dragged you out of the trailer, and Merlin carried you."

Gwaine fingered the scab on his cheekbone and thought of the length of the route. He knew how hard it was to carry the dead weight of a grown man, and Merlin could have been excused for leaving him, he thought.

"Hey," he said, holding out his hand. "Thank you. I mean it. I owe you one."

Merlin looked at his hand, back up in his face, then glanced uncertainly at Freya, who nodded towards Gwaine's offering of friendship like giving permission or encouragement. The green-knight held out his own in the same attitude, and Gwaine shook it.

"You – you were going to let us go," Merlin said quietly, almost shyly. "We wouldn't be free – we would still be there in the trailer – except for you."

Gwaine grimaced. And, at least three people would still be living, except for him taking that choice on himself. Bad people, maybe – he wasn't sure he could forgive Dottie for shooting an unarmed man in the back and making his young daughter an orphan, escaping fugitive or no – but still.

"Well, the trailer's gone," he told them. "The other prisoners took it, after. Best guess, they'll sell it and split the money and go their separate ways. So." He leaned forward to unpack the crook of his elbow, placing the bread and water to share, then handed the discarded shirt to Freya. "Thought you might appreciate a change?"

"Oh." She looked surprised, and grabbed it from his hand as she pushed herself to her feet. "Thanks…" She hesitated, twisted away and then back, then moved more decisively for the nearest break in the land; he assumed she wanted more privacy than simply asking them to turn their backs.

Gwaine couldn't help noticing that Merlin watched her from the corner of his eye til she disappeared. "You think she'll come back?" he remarked.

Merlin shot him a confused look. "Why wouldn't she?"

Gwaine shrugged. "She's a girl and on her own. We're two young men… she has no reason to trust me, and she's only known you one day."

Some understanding dawned in Merlin's eyes, an unusual mix of light and dark blue. "You think she might just – keep on going, like we thought you did?" Gwaine grimaced to convey ignorance and disinclination to guess. "Should we let her?"

Grimace turned to grin. "I'm not sure we should try to stop her, if that's the choice she wants to make," Gwaine said.

Merlin hummed thoughtfully, but there was a wrinkle between his dark brows. Gwaine decided to change the subject, while they waited to see if Freya would return.

"Everything's there," he told Merlin, flicking his fingers at the pack behind him. The green-knight glanced over his shoulder as if he had to check what Gwaine meant. "Except for your coin, and the granola." For some reason, that made Merlin smile, and Gwaine guessed, "Your ma made it?"

"No, my… friend. Who's just as good as my grandfather, I guess."

"Why'd you leave?" Gwaine said curiously. "Your home, I mean?" Merlin gave him a careful look, which Gwaine interpreted immediately, and took no offense at. "Listen, I'm a Texan, right? Working for Dottie was just a job, I'm not involved with any part of your government here, military or agriculture or commercial, right? Dottie worked out of Fort Leonard Wood so I know about Camelot, but I worked for her, not them. Why I wanted to let you go, see."

The green-knight considered, and accepted with a nod – Gwaine and his explanation, both. "I couldn't stay," he said, answering Gwaine's question but vaguely – which Gwaine didn't mind either; it was best to be cautious, for the green-knight.

Freya appeared, hiking around the hill and back toward them. The shirt, a grubby yellow-white, was a bit big on her, but with the sleeves rolled up and the tails tucked into the trousers she wore, with ragged cuffs and patched knees, it wasn't too bad. The pink shirt stained with her father's blood was wadded in her hands and fresh tear-tracks were smeared on her cheeks.

Merlin paused to allow her to join them, and didn't remark on her appearance when he continued. "Something happened – at home. And it wasn't really safe anymore, so I… couldn't stay."

Freya glanced a swift question at Gwaine – involuntarily, maybe; she didn't hold his eyes long enough for an answer. Merlin didn't elaborate further, and for a moment they all picked through and munched the crumbs of the packet of travel-bread, then Gwaine picked up the dented canteen and offered it first to Freya.

"So what now?" he asked her. "Is there someplace you want to go? Someplace you call home?" If it wasn't too unreasonably far, he'd volunteer to go with her, if she wanted. Least he could do.

She shook her head, passing the canteen on to Merlin as she swallowed, then fingered the tangled ends of her curls. "I haven't got any family," she said. "Never really learned the trade of my community. I guess I thought… Well, what about you? Are you going back to Texas?"

"Not right away," Gwaine answered. "I'm heading to Fort Leonard Wood first." Merlin's head lifted sharply at that, though his look was only thoughtful. "Like I was telling Merlin, I worked for Dottie, not Camelot, but I probably should at least report what happened to her, before I head south." Maybe not in completely accurate detail, but enough so they wouldn't come with a more official intent to investigate.

"What happened to her?" Freya said blankly. He gave his head a little warning shake, and her eyes widened in sudden – though hopefully nonspecific – realization. "Oh… never mind."

Gwaine said, to break the unpleasant awkwardness of the moment, "What about you, then, Merlin, have you got a destination in mind?" He guessed that Freya might very well choose to go with one of them, if she was as rootless as all that.

"I was… going to Leonard Wood, too," Merlin said in his quiet way, giving them each a glance. Apologetic to Freya – hopeful, maybe, to Gwaine, who immediately assumed the unsaid, _why not travel together, then_. It might complicate their arrival there – though not necessarily in a bad way.

"Why?" Freya said blankly.

"Because… because that was why I had to leave home. Two men from Camelot came, and I never heard of them before, but… my friend was afraid for me to be found out, and I don't understand because – I thought Camelot was only manufacturing dry or liquid fertilizer, it doesn't make sense why they'd be looking for people like… me."

Rumors. Some nasty, some mild – Gwaine chose one of the latter. "Seems to me, guy who's got a monopoly selling something folks need, doesn't want another guy giving it away free."

"You think they'd – lock me up all my life, to stop me growing things, so my holler would have to pay them?"

Gwaine shrugged. _Yes_ was the simple answer, but instinct told him, there was probably more to it than that.

Freya shifted closer to Merlin. "Don't go there," she pleaded softly. "Not there."

He twitched his shoulders in a way that spoke of internal misery. "Anywhere else, I'm just running away, and they could follow me. And… I've got other reasons, too."

The girl straightened, knowing something Gwaine didn't. He felt a bit self-conscious, like he ought to excuse himself from a more private conversation between the two – but curiosity kept him. Freya said, "Your father?"

Merlin ducked his head; it wasn't quite a nod, but it was good enough. Gwaine decided, if they did travel together, there was going to be a lot of time for talking.

"Well," she said tartly, to neither of them and both, "I'm _not_ going there."

"Because of _your_ father," Merlin said intuitively. She nodded, darting a rather belligerent glance at Gwaine.

"Hey," he said, holding his hands out in protest. "Dottie held the contracts, not me. Makes no difference to me if you ever end up in Leonard Wood."

"My father wasn't a criminal," she said aggressively – to Gwaine, but he had a feeling she was trying to persuade Merlin, not him. "Neither were his friends. Camelot calls anyone who opposes them lawbreaker, that way they can punish and silence them and no one else dares to ask any questions. Not the governors, not the president, or… or anybody."

"Your father stole that snagger sure enough," Gwaine reminded her mildly, but she bridled; he supposed he'd do the same in defense of his own father.

"He only did that because they were trying to prove that Camelot was purchasing way too much of the stuff – he thought they were putting it in the fertilizer as a way of – oh, I don't know – mind-controlling everyone."

Gwaine bit his lip on an urge to scoff; it sounded far-fetched. Then again, he'd never studied any kind of science, he couldn't guess accurately whether such a thing was possible or not.

Merlin said tentatively, "Snagger?"

"It's kind of a – tranquilizer," Gwaine said. "Sedative. Downer. You can smoke it dry or inhale the fumes of it liquid, or inject it straight in the bloodstream. It's what they gave you at Noble Corner, put you to sleep all night til we showed up."

The younger man frowned, looking a bit disoriented; probably he hadn't realized he'd been drugged. Freya nudged him with her elbow.

"Don't worry, there usually aren't any lingering effects, not with a single dose."

Merlin ran his hand over his hair, mussing it, eyes fixed on the ground just beyond his left knee. For a moment of silence Gwaine wondered if maybe he should do something more in Leonard Wood and with Camelot than simply drop his report and skedaddle. Maybe he ought to stick with the green-knight, who seemed an innocent in more ways than one, and make sure he got back to his granola-making adopted-granddad.

"So," Merlin said quietly, tilting his head just enough to indicate he addressed Freya rather than Gwaine. "What are you going to do? Where are you going to go?"

She shrugged, affecting carelessness. "Don't know."

…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

Merlin took a deep breath, then another.

"I have an idea," he said quietly. What he didn't have, was time to consider the possible consequences, or decide if it was a _good_ idea, or not. He turned to the goatskin pack behind him, avoiding their eyes and feeling heat rise in his face. He fumbled a bit through the disorganization Dottie had caused and fished out Gaius's folded map.

"My home is Yelder's Hollow," he said, unfolding it and holding it out where she could see, but still not raising his eyes to gauge reaction as he pointed, between squiggly lines and straight lines and faint tint of blue and green. "Just here. The old man who took me in, his name is Gaius. The road into the holler goes past the general store – they can tell you where to find him." Silence greeted his suggestion, and courage quailed. "If – if you want," he concluded lamely. And risked a glance.

She was staring at him with a wary sort of hopefulness, a reluctance born of pride and not disinclination. Somehow the expression and the smudges on her face made her seem very young.

Merlin hadn't the first idea what look he wore, himself. Never before had he felt the lack of human companionship. Yelder's Hollow teemed with familiar life of every variety; he could watch all day long if he was so interested, he could go home to Gaius any time. Walk in, sit down, talk and laugh and belong. Outside the hollow, it had seemed exciting, to meet and meet and meet, constant novelty of surroundings and experience and acquaintance. And then, terrifying. The crowd at Noble Corner hemming him in, hurting and restraining with no one to say one word in his favor. He knew for a fact that waking and traveling in Dottie's trailer would have been far different if the cell next to him had been empty, or tenanted with someone like Dalmer.

Now, he found, meet and meet and meet might mean nothing, if there wasn't also an occasional _keep_.

Gwaine intrigued him. He didn't _trust_ the curly-haired Texan the way he trusted Freya, but he believed Gwaine had spoken the truth about Camelot, his connections or the lack thereof. He believed he had nothing to fear from the other young man, directly or indirectly. He felt no hesitation about traveling the road with Gwaine.

Freya, though. He'd felt sorry for her in the trailer-cage, interested in how she'd come to be there, concerned for her freedom and well-being. He didn't know why it felt different with no bars between them, but it did. His attention was drawn back to her – the cadence of her to-the-hidden-hill-and-back-again walk, the tear-stained curve of her cheek, the dark-pool eyes.

His first friend, maybe. And he didn't want to lose that completely.

"You're sure he wouldn't mind?" she said, a bit of sarcasm indicating her doubt.

"I mean. It's not a high-rise community by the river. Gaius is grouchy and keeps to himself, mostly, but he… likes having someone around. He missed my mama when she died–" Merlin saw Gwaine's head turn, felt his eyes fasten on his face in interest, but didn't acknowledge his awareness.

"How old is he?" Freya said narrowly. "Were he and your mama… I mean, he wouldn't expect me to–" She trailed off, but Merlin didn't answer; he wasn't sure what she was asking.

Gwaine said neutrally, "About how old is your old friend, Merlin?"

"I don't know… seventy, seventy-five years, maybe?"

Gwaine's mouth quirked wryly. "He wouldn't expect that, Freya."

She slouched back wearing a look of relief; Merlin still felt confused. "He wouldn't expect anything, I don't think. You could have my mama's bed in the loft, and her mirror and dresser-drawers. It's dusty up there, probably, but any kind of anything you feel like doing for chores, Gaius would appreciate. He wouldn't pressure you none."

Gwaine leaned over Freya's other shoulder to look at the map. "Here's where we are now, near enough," he said, pointing. "Two days cross-country will see you back to Noble Corner, and then, what? Two more from there?"

Merlin nodded. Freya lifted her face from the map, gave herself a quick evaluating glance, then scrutinized the horizon.

"We could make Falcon Ridge by nightfall, heading northeast away from the road," Gwaine added, addressing her with a glance spared for Merlin. "We can pick up supplies there. Dinner and another canteen, so you can have this one."

"And this sausage," Merlin contributed, rummaging again in the pack for the last couple of inches in its packet. "There's a stream about twenty yards that way, too."

Gwaine rocked back on his heels and pushed upright. "Sounds like a plan," he said with a grin, and reached down his hands – one for each of them to use in getting up, too.

Merlin led the way to the stream. No one spoke and the back of his neck prickled, and he had to glance back to reassure himself that both were following, in spite of being able to hear their footsteps. It still seemed odd to think that strangers were interested in him – and in a friendly way.

Gwaine exclaimed in appreciation when they reached the stream. He immediately untied his professionally-made black boots, kicked them off and rolled up his strange mottled trousers to splash out into the chuckling, meandering water.

Freya squatted small, laying the map, sausage, and canteen with her old pink shirt very close to her feet to wash her hands, face and neck as neatly as any raccoon Merlin had ever watched. He couldn't think of anything to say to her; he stepped across the stream by way of a tilting rock that rose dry above the water, and wandered a short way, keeping an eye out for – ah, that would do.

He stopped and crouched down himself, resting his shoulder against the slender gray trunk of a stunted pear tree with curling yellow leaves. He rubbed his palms through the dirt above the roots absently, brushing them off against the roughness of the trunk as he watched Freya – unaware of his gaze or at least pretending it – run wet fingers through dark tangled curls again and again til she was satisfied. Then she tucked her few belongings inside her old pink shirt, making an efficient bundle, before looking around to find where he'd gone.

And her mouth dropped open.

Merlin tipped his chin up to study the tree with the first self-consciousness he'd felt in his ability for a long time. Leaves unfolded deep green, and branches creaked softly as they stretched. Numerous blossoms floated down, pushed from their place by the twisting growth of the pendant fruit.

"The grass was special," she said, having come very close; he didn't dare to look at her. "But this is…"

"Edible," he said. His palm on the trunk, he pushed to his feet before he realized she had her hand extended to touch his shoulder, half-kneeling as if to join him on the ground. She retreated, pink-cheeked, and he turned slightly to pluck one of the ripening pears swinging gently from the nearest branch. "Here. I mean, take some with you. There's plenty."

She accepted the offered fruit from his hand, but her dark eyes were on his face – and somehow, he couldn't look away. "You're coming back, aren't you," she said, spinning the pear slowly on her palm with her fingertips. "To Yelder's Hollow. Your home. You will be coming back."

"Yes," he said. Having to look away to consider the question, unable to meet her gaze and be honest with his answer. "If I can, of course. I want to – I don't have any reason to go anywhere else, but…"

He turned his body away so he couldn't see her even from the corner of his eye, and began to harvest the tree in earnest, filling the crook of his left arm, then balancing a few more pears on the backs of their brethren. Freya came around the other side of the tree, having organized her shirt-bundle to allow room for a dozen and a half round green pears.

"At least you won't go hungry," he told her cheerfully. "And you won't have to stop at Noble Corner, or… anywhere. If you don't want to."

She held the last pear in her hand, then lifted it as if to take a bite – but only inhaled deeply against the skin. They did smell good, he thought, but when she looked up at him, he was startled to see her eyes brimming with tears. She stepped closer, pinching his sleeve around the pear, and rose on her toes to bring her face to his. Nerves seized control of his body – and then did nothing productive. He stood frozen as her skin, clean now and soft, brushed his, and she kissed his cheek.

"You be careful," she whispered in his ear, and her breath sent a shiver tingling down his spine. "Please be careful – and come back. Okay?"

He found he was incapable of more than a dumb nod – and then Gwaine's voice broke the spell.

"Should get going, don't you – wow, _pears_." The leaves rustled as he snatched at a fruit, bit into it crisply and audibly. "Did you do this?" he mumbled needlessly around his mouthful.

Freya moved away from Merlin, tucking the last pear into the lumpy sack made of her old pink shirt, and pointed emphatically at Gwaine, who'd evidently washed most of the blood off his face, leaving only a small scabbed cut to show over the bruising. "You take care of him, you hear? He's worth ten of you."

"At least," Gwaine agreed unoffended, swallowing and offering his hand to the girl as he'd done to Merlin in thanking him. She took it and he added, "Watch your back now, y'hear? Travel safe."

She shook his hand once. "You too."

Over her shoulder, as she set off at a quick saunter, she tossed Merlin a wave and a smile, and his heart banged once – so unusually he might have glanced down to check on it visually. But Gwaine scuffed unlaced black boots over the ground to him, distracting him, and it wasn't unwelcome.

"Y'know, my granddad says fellas used to give a girl flowers if he liked her," the curly-haired Texan remarked with a cheerful grin, holding up his bitten pear for perusal. "Back when flowers just _grew_. I s'pose fruit is more practical."

"What?" Merlin said.

Gwaine bumped his shoulder against him – but evidently meant it as Freya had earlier, an expression of goodwill. "Come on, fill your pockets and let's get going."

**A/N: Sorry if you all were expecting Merlin&Arthur – Merlin has to get there first! But next chapter will introduce another core character – hopefully everyone will approve!**


	6. Wind Farm

**Chapter 6: The Wind Farm**

Once they got moving, it wasn't long til they were crossing the road.

Merlin lingered to look back, though Freya was out of sight, and Gwaine said wryly, as if he'd spoken his concern aloud, "She'll be fine, I'm sure. It's us I'm worried about."

It occurred to Merlin, in the first half-hour of their journey together, to wonder whether Gwaine might not be _pretending_, only to turn Merlin in when they reached their destination, for whatever reward Dottie had anticipated. He knew so very little of other people; it was something he'd never realized about himself before. Not all females were like his mother, not all young men were like him – Gwaine only stopped talking for breath to continue, while Merlin mentally scrambled for two words to rub together in reply – probably not all older men were like Gaius.

But when Gwaine had devoured his first pear down to the core, he turned to offer Merlin the five seeds, on his palm.

Merlin didn't understand. "What?"

"Thought you might want 'em. Plant 'em, grow another tree maybe… Johnny Appleseed style."

Merlin held out his hand and Gwaine tipped the seeds into it – even stopping and taking a step back to retrieve one that had fallen in the transfer. And Merlin realized, his new companion was one who valued life, and knew what was important – at that, he trusted Gwaine a little more.

"Who's Johnny Appleseed?" he asked, tucking the pear seeds away carefully in his shirt pocket.

And Gwaine was pleased to begin another rambling discussion, punctuated with odd phrases – Texas slang, Merlin usually assumed – diverting several times into explanatory side stories. It reminded Merlin of Gaius, a little. Except Gwaine enjoyed trying to explain things to Merlin, even if it often ran into more questions. Pizza, and binoculars, and compasses to tell a person which way is north. Merlin privately doubted whether Gwaine was pulling his leg with that one – didn't everyone always know which way was north? – but when his companion had pulled out the tiny round instrument from one of his trouser pockets to check for the second time, he didn't question it again.

After the first couple of hours, Gwaine took a voluntary turn carrying the pack, another detail that increased Merlin's trust, and he felt comfortable enough to take off his boots and toss the knotted laces over his shoulder to go barefoot. Which led him to question Gwaine's footwear, and those odd mottled trousers.

"My dad was just in the army when the economy went sideways in a hand-basket," Gwaine explained comfortably, taking no offense at Merlin's awkwardly-phrased curiosity. "He and his unit grabbed some weapons and ammo and seized a strip mall–"

"What's a strip mall?" Merlin interrupted, already knowing Gwaine wouldn't mind.

"A whole row of stores all joined together, not in individual buildings," Gwaine explained, hoisting the goatskin pack for comfort. "There was a Tex-Mex restaurant and a barbershop, and I forget what else he says when he tells the story, but most importantly, an army surplus warehouse. That stuff lasts forever anyway, and when you've got fifty sets of BDUs and son after son–"

"What's B-D-Use?" Merlin said.

"I forget what it stands for. This dark-green camo-pattern uniform."

"Camo?"

"Camouflage. When soldiers went to fight, it helped them blend into the landscape and hide from their enemies."

Merlin gave the other man a critical look. "Not out here, it doesn't. You ought to be wearing yellow and tan."

"We'll get to farmland pretty soon," Gwaine promised, undisturbed. "Places that buy and use the Camelot fertilizer – then you'll see green."

"But soldiers won't be attacking those places," Merlin pointed out – and immediately thought of Camelot agents searching Yelder's Hollow, the threat of more men sent.

Gwaine might have noticed his shift in mood; he didn't say anything for a while, opting instead to whistle softly through his teeth as they trudged uphill and down.

The clouds were high and sparse but fluffy, the air crisp and clear but empty of the rich scents Merlin was used to, in autumn in the holler. Fallen leaves and hickory smoke as meat was cured and the tang of lye as soap was made and sometimes on the high ridges you could smell snow coming two days away. Merlin thought about putting his boots back on, too, so he wouldn't have to feel the whispers of the hungry land, with every step. He'd been able to ignore it better, walking on the road.

"What's the matter?" Gwaine's question broke the silence with an abruptness that made Merlin startle.

"What?" He shielded his eyes from the sun overhead to squint up a little rise at Gwaine, stopped and twisted around, watching him as he tied his mane of curly hair out of his face at the nape of his neck.

"You've got this look on your face like someone just kicked your favorite dog." Gwaine grinned, but there was something in his dark eyes that reflected more genuine. "What's wrong?"

Merlin hiked up to join Gwaine at the top of the rise, reaching to take the pack for his turn. "When I was a kid," he began hesitantly, settling the weight and positioning the single remaining strap for the greatest comfort, "I used to – grow things without thinking about it. It was like a… conversation, but not one I heard with my ears. Things spoke to me – grass and plants and trees, seeds and flowers. The earth called to me, and I answered."

He tried for a subtle glance to see if he could catch Gwaine with an impatient expression or rolling his eyes, but the curly-haired Texan looked just as enthusiastic as when he was story-telling, himself. "My ma has three cactus she keeps in pots on the kitchen counter," he said. "She always says they like to be talked to." Merlin grinned. "So, what, this land is talking to you? Or is it that you can't hear anything?"

"I _can't_ answer. I can't give back," Merlin tried to explain. "It would take me a week to grow the grass and bushes and trees as far as we can see, and then if anyone found out, it would be just like at home. People asking questions and searching for the answers. Even if I just let it go while we're walking–"

"It'd be like a green arrow of grass pointing right to you." Gwaine nodded. "Well. If you don't like Leonard Wood and you don't feel your home is safe anymore, we could probably get you across the border. Texas buys from Camelot, but if I had to guess, I'd say they'd be happy not to have to, or at least not as much."

Merlin thought about that. Thought about what Gaius had said about Camelot's beginnings – originally intended to help as many people as possible. Organization and coordination had led to control and possession…

"I'll think about it," he said.

"Can I ask you something?" Gwaine turned and started down the other side of the rise, toward a pair of big old cottonwoods keeping their distance from each other on the banks of a wandering stream. "You said you had more than one reason to go to Leonard Wood, and Freya mentioned your father."

"Yeah," Merlin allowed, feeling inexplicably reticent again.

Gwaine glanced back at him; probably he could tell that, but even though Merlin wanted to apologize somehow, it didn't seem as if the Texan truly minded. He only began another story about the first time one of his older brothers – four or five altogether, Merlin wasn't sure – took him riding to watch the small herd of longhorns their family kept since his father's retirement from the army. "So here I'm eating my sandwich of bread and butter and brown sugar because my baby teeth can't get a bite off the strip of venison jerky, and I'm too short to get up in the saddle by myself…"

And then they were stopping to wet their throats and refresh their skin by the stream.

"I love cottonwoods," Gwaine mentioned, tipping his head up to watch and listen to the rustle of the leaves, letting the water drip carelessly. "I love the sound the leaves make when the wind blows." He tossed Merlin a grin, rising to his feet.

Merlin stood also, and said haltingly, "My first memory. I'm walking down a road holding my mama's hand. The sun is bright and you can see the heat haze on the road." Gwaine nodded, stepping across the stream. Merlin followed, continuing, "My mama told me, when I asked about my dad, that she lost him. And I thought, when we walked down that road and she kept looking back, maybe she was watching for him to catch up with us. Only he never did."

Gwaine, he was discovering, was indeed as good a listener as he was a talker. It made it easier for Merlin to be the talker.

"My mama was sick a lot, for – five years, five and a half, after we found Yelder's Hollow and Gaius found us. Sometimes she couldn't get out of bed in the morning, and she worried if I was too far away to hear her call. And she cried a lot."

"Depression?" Gwaine asked quietly.

"Sometimes she seemed depressed," Merlin remembered, feeling like he might be missing a deeper meaning to Gwaine's question, but maybe it didn't matter much. "Not every day, but… when I was, twelve I think, she didn't wake up at all. I sat beside her on the bed til Gaius came upstairs, but she… just looked asleep. Peaceful. Smiling… I wondered if maybe she found my dad after all." Gwaine didn't say anything, but glanced over as if to assure Merlin that he was still interested, and listening. "Then, um. Five days ago, men came to the holler from Camelot. And Gaius told me that my mother had told him, my dad used to work for them. In Leonard Wood."

Gwaine's head came up; he inhaled deeply and swiftly between parted lips as if making a significant discovery. Only for a moment, as Merlin watched him with curious expectation, then he shook his head, relaxing again, and twirled his finger in a gesture for Merlin to continue.

"My mama said, she _lost_ my dad. Gaius said that, people like me who worked for Camelot, never came home. So I guess I want to… find out what happened to them. To him."

Gwaine hummed thoughtfully, and they walked on for several minutes, through a dell and up the side of another of the unending hills of the rolling countryside. There he stopped, and though Merlin couldn't see a reason for the pause, he indulged a moment of being able to see a few miles further – squares to the north that were darker. Green and growing, maybe.

"What are you going to do when we get there?" Gwaine asked him. Merlin gave him a blank look. "I mean, I'm heading for the office of Pendragon Security, man named Wilfred Aredian keeps the payroll Dottie was on. What's your plan?"

Merlin shrugged. He probably should be bothered by his lack of an answer, but found he was not. "Walk around, probably. Look, and listen."

"And hope not to be caught out," Gwaine said with a gentle sort of grimness.

Merlin's attention was caught by movement toward the northeast horizon. "What's that?" he asked, pointing.

Gwaine looked for a moment. "Windmill," he concluded. "Er – turbine, they call the big ones. More than one…" He shaded the side of his face with his left hand. "A wind farm."

"That can't be a windmill," Merlin objected, though the faint hint of rhythmic motion did remind him. "We have windmills in the holler, they pump water up out of the ground."

Gwaine dropped his hand to give him a one-sided grin and a raised red eyebrow. "'Bout how high?"

"Eight, ten, sometimes twelve feet."

"Diameter of the sails?" Merlin spread his arms in approximation, and Gwaine actually laughed. "I've never seen this farm – the road keeps east a ways further before turning north, but Merlin my friend, I'm telling you, these windmills can be over a hundred yards high, and each blade fifty yards long."

Merlin tried to imagine that size in terms of a tree, and found himself gaping. "No way," he said.

"Sure." Gwaine shrugged one shoulder in invitation. "It's what supplies the fort with electricity. You wanna see 'em up close?"

…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

Gwaine had a hard time banishing the images of three dead bodies from the backs of his eyelids, that day, dispelling the very real, if undeserved, sense of guilt, and knew he'd made the right choice, years ago, not to follow his father in his more militant profession.

It helped to think of Merlin's wide grin upon seeing that Gwaine hadn't abandoned him and Freya. It helped to recall the innocent wonder of the girl's expression, looking up at the miracle pear tree, which would never have happened had Merlin been kept in the trailer.

It helped, a little, to talk.

_How many times a day do I have to say it?_ his exasperated teacher had once questioned. _Stop talking!_ His mother had early resorted to an easy but probably not strictly truthful _I don't know_, to his unending boyish curiosity. His older brothers a more condescending assortment of _You wouldn't understand_ and _Tell you when you're older_ and _I'm busy, squirt_. His granddad had answered with another story – which sometimes wasn't an answer at all, to Gwaine.

It felt – good, to be the one able to answer questions. To have someone so unique and special as a companion – yet so perfectly willing and even happy to listen to Gwaine's jay-birding.

And his quiet wasn't backwoods naiveté, or self-righteous ignorance. Merlin considered before he contributed to the mostly one-sided conversation, and if his words were simple, still they rang with truth. Sobered Gwaine's flippancy, occasionally, but without intention or offense.

By the time they climbed the last hill – Gwaine wondered if the younger man was as weary of the constant strain of up-and-down on his leg muscles as he was – the guilt had been smoothed nearly imperceptible by the sense that he'd made the right choice, entering the trailer to free Merlin, and gladness that this green-knight was free.

The long slender pointed blades of the windmills – ten now that he could see over the brow of the hill – rotated ponderously in the generous breeze, and the setting sun warmed the back of Gwaine's neck as they reached the summit.

"Oh!" Merlin said involuntarily, at his side – Gwaine glanced to see that his blue eyes were fastened to the formidable structures.

"Oh," Gwaine echoed, heavily significant, pointing to the grounds of the wind-farm, which had caught _his_ attention.

Ten, no, nine vehicles were parked, almost one to a mill, very near the base of each tower. Three RVs - one full-size van in three different paint jobs - a pickup with a shed, it looked like, built into the bed – another with two small red tents pitched next to it – and others.

_One_ could have been a mechanic, a repair or maintenance crew. This many, though…

"Who are they?" Merlin said blankly.

"Leeches," Gwaine said, and anticipated the younger man's nearly-habitual but entirely unself-conscious response, _What_? "They're stealing electricity. One to a mill like that, the amounts siphoned off are low enough not to be noticeable right off the bat. And, if the authorities come, they scatter and only a few might be caught." Gwaine smirked at the motley collection of vehicles, feeling oddly comfortable at the sight of another community of lawbreakers. It gave him an idea.

"What for?" Merlin wondered. "Is it dangerous?"

"Some vehicles run off electricity rather than gas," he commented. Not _those_, though, surely, and the ratio was way off – one in a dozen, he could believe, but not all nine of a caravan. "Food preservation, or cooking maybe…"

"I noticed a lumber camp and a saw mill, my second day out of the holler," Merlin said wistfully, glued to the scene. "I wanted to go down and look. Get closer, and maybe meet them."

There was no suggestion in his tone, only a simple relating of facts, and Gwaine felt that if he coaxed Merlin away from here, the younger man would follow willingly, and never think to blame him if he had regrets.

He considered. They were still more than half a mile from the nearest one, a cream-and-sage-striped camper. "If we take this detour," he reasoned aloud, "we might not make Falcon Ridge by nightfall." Merlin listened, attentive and serious. "We've got to go _somewhere_, but I don't know Falcon Ridge personally. It might very well be safer begging a meal and a place to sleep from someone who won't even think about turning us in…"

The younger man turned a thoughtful gaze back on the vehicles of the leeches.

"If we can convince _them_ we're trustworthy," Gwaine finished.

Merlin lifted dark eyebrows. "But we are," he said, "trustworthy."

Gwaine couldn't help laughing. "Okay, let's give it a shot."

…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

Gwen flicked the casing on the charger meter-reader, stubbornly stuck in a twelve o'clock position, and cursed, shoving up the sleeves of the checkered woolen shirt she wore under her faded denim overalls.

Nothing for it. She balanced herself on her stomach over the van-camper's grill and ducked under the hood, her heels lifting from the soles of her boots inside them as she stretched to reach the battery, checking the cables – uselessly – once again.

_ Hurry up. Sunlight's fading, and I'm wasting electricity on this, and I really don't want to have to walk over to ask Jerry for help _again_, but if it's not fixed and a patrol comes from Leonard Wood…_

Her fingers slipped on the protective coating surrounding the posts and she cursed again, using a term her mother wouldn't approve of.

_Hurry_. And now there was blood slicking her hand.

She pushed away from the recalcitrant engine, remembering to take care not to bang her head on the raised hood – that would be just her luck – remembering also not to cram a grease-covered finger automatically into her mouth to suck at the cut.

"Crank the old jalopy," a voice said – male, unfamiliar, _amused_ – and she whirled. "Give 'er a little kick?"

Gwen stared at the oddest pair of boys – young men, at least the curly-haired one was probably her age or older – she'd ever seen. Curly wore military fatigues and combat boots with a more ordinary tan cotton shirt, a bag slung over one shoulder that looked like it was made of animal skin; he grinned engagingly – flirtatiously? _o__ffensively._

The other, a rawboned kid with a mop of black hair and prominent cheekbones and _interesting_ eyes, wore patched homespun and carried a pair of fur-lined hide boots. Going _barefoot_, only weeks away from winter. Both of them sported facial bruises and a cut or two, like they'd been in a fight. With each other, maybe?

Instantly she evaluated them for threat, both personally and professionally. They'd stopped at a decent distance, not crowding her, not leering or darting glances at each other. They looked too young for Camelot agents – but she was aware that the company might very well employ all sorts for just this kind of… well, what?

"What do you want?" she blurted. Sounding short of temper, but really, she was past caring about social niceties. Not here, not now, not in the midst of a commission of a crime with a _dead_ getaway vehicle.

"Nothing." The older boy shrugged, tipping up his head to watch the great blades of the turbine rotate laboriously above them. Grind-squeak-moan… grind-squeak-moan… "Only Merlin never saw a wind-farm before, and then when we saw you-all down here, we decided to come say hello."

"Hello," she snapped. Nervous that they might be from Camelot after all, no matter how illogical that was. A patrol forewarned would strike hard and fast and force answers in a cinder-block interrogation room, not wander over dressed like a pair of lost misfits, wouldn't they? "Go away."

"Too busy committing crime to be hospitable?" The curly-haired boy grinned knowingly. "It's a crime what you're doing to that battery, I'll say."

The other gave him a quick troubled glance. "Sorry," he said to Gwen, quickly and shyly. He stepped closer with his hand outstretched, but she was struck by the complete lack of threat in his manner or proximity. "I'm Merlin, this is Gwaine. We didn't mean to bother, or interrupt, just…" He shrugged, raising his eyes to hers with a little-boy hesitation that made her look through long dark lashes at the extraordinary blue irises. "Wanted to come say hey."

She didn't take his hand, showing the state of hers to take any sting from the rudeness. "It's all right. I'm just – in something of a bind, right now. Not a great time for visitors." She added with sarcasm for Gwaine's benefit, "Busy committing a crime."

"Oh, us too," Gwaine said airily, inexplicably, not taking offense. He stepped casually to the other side of the camper and leaned under the hood, keeping his hands outside the engine block, at least – and inhaled deeply through his nose. "Smell that gas, though. Have you checked the fuel pipe connections? If you've got a leak, re-charging the battery is going to get you nowhere, girlie."

She was suddenly so mad she considered strangling him with the cables. "I'm a scientist, not a mechanic!" she spat. "And I have a name."

"Well, I am a mechanic." He was unperturbed by her ire, still grinning. "Tell me the name, and I'll use it."

"It's Gwen," she couldn't help saying. "You can use it in saying goodbye."

"Bye, Gwen." His grin widened and his dark eyes danced. "Good luck with your fuel leak – Merlin, let's find someone else to talk to, huh?"

Merlin told her, presumably by way of farewell, "It's going to rain tonight."

_What_? She stared at him – he was perfectly serious – she wondered if he was an idiot. Couple marbles short, maybe? Not playing with a full deck? Then again… she glanced up at the clouds that were blowing together and sticking, toward the northwest. Rain would be bad, if she didn't have this engine fixed to actually _run_.

"Wait," she said, as they turned away, simultaneous as twins. And they both turned to face her again, like a double act. "You really are a mechanic? You think you can fix this?"

Gwaine shrugged the shoulder not burdened with a dead animal stuffed with goodness-knew-what. "As long as it doesn't require parts I can't scrounge or fashion."

She glanced at Merlin and saw nothing but goodwill and honesty. In this world, an idiot for sure. "What do you want for it?" she blurted to Gwaine. Not being used to such an unusual venue of barter.

He glanced at his friend as if seeking his agreement also. "Shelter if it rains? And if it turns out I can't help you, we'll leave."

She wavered. There was the cab, and the camper had one decent-sized bunk, though the table-and-benches arrangement could fold down into a padded platform that wasn't completely unforgiving to one's skeletal and muscular structures; she'd used it regularly when it had been her mother and her living there, instead of just her. But though the lock on the door was flimsy at best, she wasn't at all sure she wanted to invite two young men she didn't know from Adam to share it with her.

"How are you set for food?" she asked. "I can pay you with dinner." Belatedly she scrambled to take mental stock of her pantry cupboard, hoping she wasn't lying.

"A cooked meal?" Gwaine said hopefully, and Merlin gave her a shy smile.

And she found herself backtracking, hearing her mother voice her opinion on all men, especially young ones, and how they made decisions, because it wasn't with their _brain_. Deliberately she held Gwaine's eyes. "Never mind," she said, struggling to hold her voice firm, feeling her face flush with foolishness unbecoming to a scientist. "I probably shouldn't trust you without knowing if I can trust you and I don't see any way of doing that–"

Gwaine was looking at Merlin, oddly enough, and intensely; the amusement was abandoned, or just temporarily laid aside. Merlin studied his toes, gnawing the side of his lip, before glancing up at Gwaine. He shook his head once to answer his companion's unspoken question, which Gwaine seemed to accept – which was also odd, if Merlin was the one a couple beans short of a full count. Then Merlin put his hand into the pocket of his shirt, drew it back out clenched in a fist.

"Here," he said, holding it out. "You can trust us. I thought the same, when I first started meeting people, but I trust Gwaine now, and you can too." Gwaine met her eyes; he looked just as surprised as she felt. "Even if you don't, you can keep these."

His hand hovered, and hers ventured forth, cupped open just beneath, to receive anything from a gold coin to a live frog, _she_ didn't know.

She wasn't expecting seeds.

Small and brown and pointed, five of them looking strange on her grease-smeared palm. Not quite apple – she peered closer – "Pear?" she guessed incredulously.

"Very good!" Merlin's smile was crooked and brilliantly boyish, and a pang of something like lonely-only-child, that she'd never felt before, startled her.

But. She took one of the seeds between the nails of thumb and forefinger of her right hand, and squeezed gently. The seeds were fresh.

How in the world were these seeds still fresh?

"Fine," she said abruptly, her eyes on the innocent tiny anomalies. "Do what you can with the engine, you can share whatever I have for dinner, and we'll figure something out about sleeping arrangements when the rain comes. Deal?"

She didn't even wait to hear either response, but headed for the camper door.

To the lab.

…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

"Hells!" Gwaine exclaimed, to the accompaniment of a metallic jingle, accidental or temperamental. "This is not working, trying to reconnect these lines only by feel."

Leaning his back against the right front tire, legs stretched out and ankles crossed, Merlin alternated between watching the lazily-progressing sunset – fabulous because of the storm-clouds gathering – and the closed side door of the camper where Gwen had disappeared. He asked, "What's wrong?"

Gwaine snorted. "Well, I've trimmed the one line that was split, but I can't tighten the jubilees properly without good light – that'll have to wait til the morning, though she can use it for a getaway if she needs to." He came to lean one hip against the front corner of the vehicle, wiping his fingers on a greasy rag. "What do you think of our hostess, then?"

"I think she's – abrupt." Impatient, Merlin thought, rather than unfriendly, but that was understandable, and he didn't take it personally.

"I think she's curvy."

Merlin glanced up to catch Gwaine's grin as his hands demonstrated the contours of a generous female figure in midair, and couldn't help a small smile himself, though he shook his head at his new friend.

But then, couldn't help considering. Comparing. Gwen was of a height similar to Freya, but yes, much curvier than the slender younger girl. Dark-haired also, but where Freya's soft curls hung loose on her shoulders, Gwen's hair was kinky-curly and maybe quite long when untied from its knot on the nape of her neck. But, he hadn't experienced the same pleasantly visceral, excited-nervous attraction to Gwen, to look at her and be near to her… Maybe it was because she looked to be a few years older than him? Or because her age or circumstances or personality made her seem more confident than vulnerable, and didn't engage his sympathy or desire to protect? He hoped Freya was okay, tonight.

"I think she's smart," Merlin added, to Gwaine. "A scientist, she said. What do you think of that?"

"Dunno." Gwaine drawled comically, "Never studied me no science."

Merlin thought again about the way Gwen had looked at the seeds, not just in appreciation, but something not unlike suspicion. He was going to offer the pears they'd carried with them in the pack in addition to whatever she might have going for dinner, but… He wondered what she was up to, in the camper.

"Water's where?" Gwaine queried casually.

Merlin thought for a moment, rubbing his palms absently through the brittle stems of ryegrass that had managed to sprout and gasp a short existence in the field under the wind-mills. "Quarter-mile that way," he said, nodding to indicate his meaning. "West-south-west."

"I'm going to go strip and have a thorough scrub," Gwaine said. "Won't be long – it's too chilly. I'll take the bucket with me – you can tell Gwen I'll bring back fresh water."

"There's soap in the pack," Merlin reminded him.

"Yep. If dinner's ready before I get back, save me some? It'll be nice to get something warm on the inside if I've just frozen off my outside layer of skin along with all this dirt and grease." Gwaine rummaged for a moment in the pack, detoured for the water bucket, then sauntered away, whistling.

The camper door squeaked open, and Gwen put a foot down on the one step between threshold and ground, holding the door wide against the side of the vehicle and staring into space. Her expression troubled already, the frown seemed to deepen when she heard Gwaine whistling his way out of sight; she glanced over at Merlin.

"He's gone for fresh water." Merlin felt it polite to get to his feet.

She didn't answer, only grunted and turned back to the door, rattling something from one side to the other that served to prop it open somehow, then stepped back up into the camper, muttering about the light.

Merlin drifted after her. "Gwaine said you could drive this now, but he can finish tightening lines or something in the morning," he offered.

"Of course he did," she said sarcastically. "In the morning, so y'all have to stay… And can I trust you to keep your hands to yourselves tonight?"

"Yes, ma'am." Merlin looked down at his palms. One of the earliest lessons of childhood – if it's not a toy and it's not yours, don't touch it without permission.

"Either come in or go away," she added impatiently. "I'm not drawing enough wattage for all the lights _and_ the equipment."

Hesitantly he stepped up into the camper, aware of the way the vehicle rocked with his weight. And if it wasn't the cramped size of the space making him feel immediately and inordinately large and clumsy, it was the furnishings. Glass everywhere. Dishes and strangely shaped carafes and tiny tubes in frames holding colored liquids vertical and metal instruments inexplicable and delicate. Knobs and switches and lights winking like the eyes of a crowd of curious wildlife gathering to his campfire at midnight.

He took a step back, out of the light of the open door and away from her, into the opposite half of the vehicle to be sure he was out of her way, hardly daring to breathe. Then he smelled the stew bubbling in a square pan with a wire tail attached to the wall and no discernible heat source, and hardly dared salivate.

"What is all this?" he asked. "What's it for?"

"Research." She slouched on a low stool, one knee under the narrow table she faced, one knee toward him, and bent to peer into the top of a bent tube attached to a small base, on which lay one of his pear seeds, split in half.

"Oh, Gwen," he said with involuntary sorrow. "Why did you do _that_."

She lifted her head and studied him with the same expression of abstract intensity. "If I answer your questions, will you answer one of mine?" she said bluntly. He nodded hesitantly, and she turned to cast a critical eye over the array that was perplexing to Merlin, but must surely hold significance for her. "We're trying to extrapolate the formula for Camelot's fertilizer," she said, and he assumed she referred to the other people and vehicles also leaching electricity from the wind farm. "With the intent of synthesizing it for mass production, to break Camelot's monopoly."

Merlin waited for more, but she only looked at him expectantly. He said, "What?"

She rolled her eyes and made a noise of gentle exasperation that somehow made him grin rather than blush over his lack of comprehension. "Camelot uses a secret formula for their fertilizer," she said. "If we can figure out what that is and how they make it, then other people in other places can make it also, and it'll be cheaper and more plentiful."

He considered. That sounded admirable – and something that Camelot would probably seek to prevent. "I met someone recently," he ventured, "who thought that maybe they were putting something in the fertilizer that was meant to make everyone more biddable?"

"You mean like mind- or mood-control? No, there's nothing like that. We're pretty close to cracking it from what I hear," she added. "Okay, your turn. Those pear-seeds you gave me were _fresh_ – where did you get them?"

He suddenly doubted the wisdom of offering her the handful of fruit that was left in the mouth of the goatskin pack outside – maybe one of the coins from his boot would have done instead. But he answered honestly anyway, "Gwaine gave them to me."

She made that impatient noise again. "Where'd he get them?"

"From a pear?"

"Where'd he get that, this time of year in this state?" She answered herself sarcastically, "From a tree. Okay, tell me about that tree."

Merlin looked down at his fingers twisting together. But Gwaine seemed to think she wouldn't tell anyone about him, and if she knew things about Camelot and the fertilizer that had replaced the ability of people like him, like his father…

"I grew it," he said softly. Risked a glance; she was motionless but attentive – intent but not shocked. "Not from seeds, the tree was already there, but I… helped it. Nourished and encouraged…" He stumbled to a stop and shrugged.

"Show me what you mean," she said evenly, her eyes and expression giving nothing away. She shifted on the stool and behind her on the table he saw half a dozen little bean plants struggling to survive in a tray of cups.

"What are those for?" he asked, shuffling closer. It was the wrong time of year for seedlings – and she couldn't tend a garden if her community constantly moved about.

"Experiments," she said. "Like this one. Show me."

He concentrated, reaching out to brush the heart-shaped, thumbnail-sized leaves, and chose two of them. The smile that came to his face was spontaneous, as the tiny stems trembled and straightened, thickened and strengthened, the leaves shaking themselves out and spreading like hands. He wanted to take them all the way to the fingertip-sized, sticky yellow-white blossoms and then long pendant finger-beans, but the cups were too small to support a root system for an adult plant.

"You're a green-knight," Gwen said incredulously, her eyes flicking from her bean-tray to him. He nodded, not daring more than a quick glance at her face, but it wasn't enough to judge her thoughts. "A wild one?" she asked.

Merlin met her gaze more fully, then. "What?"

She pressed her lips together and shook her head, impatient with herself. "Here, sit down." She stood and leaned to move an apparatus from a section of cushion on the bench next to the table, at right angles to her stool and close enough for their knees to touch. "I just meant, you've never been at Camelot. You grew up away from there, and they never found you?"

"Um," Merlin said, perching on the cushion, too uneasy to relax. "Almost, last week. That's where we're headed, Leonard Wood. I'm hoping to find out why, since they manufacture the fertilizer, why they can't just leave me and my holler alone."

"It's a good question," she mused. "Can't figure that one, either… Would you think me very strange, if I asked to see?"

"I just–" he began, gesturing at the plants, two of which were twice as tall and large and healthy as the other four.

"No, I mean the blood. Your blood. Is it actually green, or is _green_-knight just a figure of speech?"

"No, it's… it's kind of a giveaway, actually." He crossed his arms over his chest, unable to keep his eyebrows from drawing together in a frown that felt unhappy on his face.

She removed a small rectangular slip of glass from her instrument and leaned back to open a drawer in the floor-to-ceiling set of cabinetry behind her, just next to the cut-out where the square pan of stew rested. "Pinprick and smear is good enough for me," she told him, setting out more such tiny glass plates. Then an item that looked like a quarter-inch long nail, shiny-sharp and with a hard glass bulb on the end for gripping it with - and from a counter-top opposite, a bottle and scrap of cloth. "Suck on it a minute, and no one will ever know."

Still he hesitated – but then again, she already knew the secret…

"Okay." He held out his hand, palm-up.

Gwen uncorked the bottle, held the cloth against the top, and turned it briefly upside down to gather some of the liquid on the cloth; it smelled a bit like witch-hazel. She twisted the tiny nail in the dampened cloth, then refolded it and scrubbed Merlin's first finger. Glancing at him for final permission, she steadied his forefinger against the tabletop and jabbed the thorn-like instrument into the ball of his fingertip with a sudden efficiency that startled him more than it hurt. A drop welled, iridescent green in the small but bright light of the instrument.

"Wow," she said, sounding impressed. "Fascinating. Okay, just here." She helped him rub the drop onto one of the tiny glass slips, fitting the second overtop to press the drop out to an inch's diameter. Briefly she watched him suck at the pinprick like she'd advised, before sliding the glass plate into the instrument and tucking stray stands of her hair behind her ears to squint down the barrel of it again. "Microscope," she said, before he could ask. "Magnifies what I'm looking at by fifty-times increments, so I can see…"

"So you can see what?" he asked, in spite of himself.

She didn't answer, frozen hunched over the strange instrument, and adjusting the knobs on the sides only fractionally. Then she pushed back, gaze unfocused; after another moment she stood and turned in place – it was tiny inside the camper – to adjust some setting of the square pan. And to face out the open door at the sun, halved by the horizon; Merlin wondered if she could see Gwaine returning yet, if the stew was ready. His stomach growled, which might have reminded her he was there.

"I have… the beginning of an idea," she said. Even her voice sounded unfocused. "I may be way off – I kind of hope I'm way off – but I need your help to figure out if I'm right. Or not."

"Sure," he said, and then she turned to look at him, dark eyes glinting under shifting currents.

"I need a larger sample of your blood," she said. "Something I can divide into several parts to test – to add other substances to and see what happens, do you understand?"

He didn't, quite. But ignorance and selfishness and nerves didn't seem a good enough reason to deny her help with her science when she asked.

"It's just–" she added, as he hesitated to consider, "I was raised on – all this. My mother, and all the others, were educated and trained – _smart_, and ever since I can remember, we've been trying to crack that formula. Mostly I've been training with my mother, but–" She sighed heavily and indicated the camper. "_This_ is not the best of conditions, but a stationary lab can be found and smashed and burned. Here it's only, stuff tipped and broken and spilled, driving too fast cross-country, ruined because the electric cut out halfway through the process. And collaboration is hard when we're all out of shouting range and neck-deep in engine repairs. It's slow going at the best of times – we have a farm up north we work nine months out of the year for support. Then go on the road looking to siphon enough electricity to power the equipment – but not enough to get caught and in trouble."

"Is your mother with this group, too?" he asked.

"She was til last year," Gwen said. "She met a man in one of the towns near the farm, and decided to stay with him instead of moving on with us. He was nice and they said I could stay too, but… I think she gave up. Happy with him, I think, but to me she seemed only… half herself, without this project. I want to help finish it, to show her…"

Merlin understood that much, at least. If he had known how to cure his mother, to make her happy and healthy and eager for life, as he could do with the plants he had not ever loved so well as her, he would have done it. "Okay," he said. "How much do you need?"


	7. Research

**Chapter 7: Research**

Gwen tapped her fingers on the table next to her journal – loose pages scrounged from a number of sources, sewn together into a soft leather cover - in time to the drumming of the rain on the roof of the camper. The soft, monotonous noise was, and had been for hours now, mixed with the muted sound of a man snoring – Gwaine, in the cab of the camper to stay dry.

If she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply of the familiar mix of chemicals and canned stew and bean-leaves at her elbow, she could imagine she was curled in her mother's lap – _once upon a time, in a laboratory long ago and a land far away_ – listening to her father snore.

But her eyes would not stay shut. Sleepless and irritated with numbers and equations, signs and symbols read as easily as the alphabet, and learned at the same time. And the implications of what she'd discovered, double- and triple-checked. Since she'd been on her own with the group and not her mother's go-fer assistant, she'd been given the monotonous task of mixing the portion of the formula they knew for sure, for the others to test in their research. She'd seen samples of Camelot product, she'd even run a few fanciful tests herself when they had extra. But now… this suspicion would not leave her.

_Mother_… _What have you done_?

She understood now, she thought, why her mother had been so driven to recreate the formula. So devastated when it proved elusive for so long, that she turned her back on all of it.

Gwen shifted to look toward the cab-end of the camper, even though the snoring meant Gwaine still slept. He'd returned to dinner scrubbed clean under his clothes, shoulder-length dark hair dripping and curling, to find Merlin dishing out portions because she was working – because he'd given her three full vials of his green-tinged blood.

"Hell's sake, Merlin," Gwaine had complained. Furious with her in spite of Merlin's explanation and reassurance, and she'd experienced a pang for her subterfuge, waiting til the more canny of the pair was gone.

Highly protective, that one. Or deeply deceptive, to be bringing someone like Merlin, someplace like Leonard Wood.

Wind gusted, and raindrops pattered across the roof, one side to the other, and then it was still. Gwen breathed and listened to the silence – all the machinery was off, the cables disconnected and stowed in preparation for a departure as swift as necessary. Now she ran only the one light-bulb on recharged battery power.

Being very careful not to shake the camper, Gwen eased herself up from the ancient, twice-reupholstered cushions, shoving the last half-vial of the green blood in the pocket of her overalls, beside the key to the camper. The lock on the door ground as she moved the lever, but Gwaine had opted for the bench seat of the camper's cab, and wouldn't hear. Merlin, however…

At least neither had made any moves on her. Hadn't even dropped any verbal hints; Gwaine seemed happy to stay in flirty, mixed-compliments-and-insults banter territory, _meaning_ none of it. Where she didn't feel comfortable, really, but Merlin was a good buffer for that, serenely treating them both with the same mild kindness.

They were mismatched, Gwen thought as she pressed the button at the top of the door handle that would release the simple latching mechanism. But not in a way that jarred or irritated the other, in a way that complemented and matched. She wondered how long they'd known each other – with such obviously disparate upbringing and experience, she suspected it hadn't been long – and whether their bruises were from someone else's fists, then.

Outside, all was wet, droplets standing out on the metal walls of the camper, dripping from the stairs, turning the wind-farm field into a sea of clammy mud. Above, the sky was lightening toward dawn, enough to see that lower whiter puffier clouds scudded away before the wind-blasts that would probably push away the higher thicker gray mass before too long. She peered around a moment and heard only dripping and blowing and the grind-squeak-moan of the turbines.

When the camper-cab's bench seat had been offered for bed and shelter, Merlin had deferred to Gwaine and explained shyly, _I'd rather be outside._

Even if it rains? Storms, thunder and lightning and wind, with the rain? Even in the cold.

The green-knight had shrugged, and preferred.

"Merlin?" she tried. Maybe he was sleeping somewhere. Maybe he had taken shelter in the sparse grove of stubby trees to the far west, or maybe closer, sharing the cab of the camper with his friend… Or maybe he was just gone.

She neither saw nor heard anything to tell her of his whereabouts, the whole trek to the nearest van, and didn't know what to think.

Oh well, it was that kind of night anyway.

Gwen knocked softly at the back door of the van. A moment later, tried again. Heard her friends' sleepy-confused voices and cringed guiltily – and knocked again. The lock disengaged and the light came on as the right-side door opened, showing Jerry seated shirtless on the mattress that took up half the cargo area. Upon recognizing her, he extended his legs down to the back bumper through the open space.

"Can I talk to you," she said, "it's important."

"Yeah."

Behind him, Lea blinked and freed a hand from clutching their shared bedding to her chest, her shoulders showing the straps of an undershirt, to toss Jerry a flannel shirt. As he fitted his shoes untied onto his feet to step down to the ground, Lea rummaged for her own clothes. Jerry pushed the door almost shut to give his wife her privacy, but keep the light on.

"What's wrong?" he said, beginning to stretch out kinks brought on by cold weather and a bed that was hard and restrictive. As of course they all had to deal with, but Jerry was closer to fifty than forty, and Gwen suspected some very rough living in his past. Lea was the classically trained of the two; Jerry acted as her assistant but often came up with a blunted common-sense solution that hadn't occurred to the others.

"I need to ask you a question."

"About?" he said, concerned. Without the smile to rearrange his facial muscles, gravity pulled tanned skin down over skeletal bones and his salt-and-pepper bristle looked more recessive than ever, in the harsh small light from the vehicle.

"Two boys came by last night. Don't worry, they've been gentlemen," she reassured him. "Surprisingly enough. The one was a mechanic–" she reminded herself to give Jerry his cables back – "he fixed the engine for me, actually. And the other one…"

Gwen reached in her overalls pocket and withdrew the corked vial, cooled and with heparin added for anticoagulation purposes. Jerry stepped right up to her – he was only a couple inches taller than her, a couple inches shorter than Lea.

"What is that," he said quietly, bending to bring his face close to the vial, without reaching to touch or take it in hand.

"His blood," she said.

For a moment, he didn't react. Then for another moment, he looked deep into her eyes, his own sockets so cavernous in his skull that his dark eyes appeared to bulge a bit.

"Lea!" He raised his voice without moving, transferring his gaze back to the vial. He lifted his hand to pull the van's back door fully open. "Get out here – you wanna see this."

Lea was a tall buxom woman, all hips and sagging chin and bosom, eyebrows and lashes as washed-out brown as her short limp hair, but her eyes were green and sparkling as emeralds and her overflowing compassion transformed her into a highly attractive companion. She came out of the back of the van in blue cotton trousers and a faded floral-pattern cotton wrapper, eyes bright and eager; she gave Gwen a one-armed hug, taking in her husband and the object of his attention as secondary. "You okay?"

"Green blood," Jerry stated. "Gwen says a Knight showed up on her doorstep last night."

"Truly?" Lea said, eyes wide as a child's.

"Why." Gwen cleared her throat. "Why does this register as the unknown biological component of the fertilizer?"

They exchanged looks; Lea shook her head – not in negative, but in surrender.

"Yes, I've been doing some work on my own!" Gwen added heatedly, resenting the childish feeling of guilt, getting caught messing about with something she wasn't supposed to have touched. "Why didn't anyone tell me – they're using _blood_!" It sounded so awful, in the humid dark and the smell of mud, she almost vomited.

"Your mother didn't want you to know," Lea said softly. "She was ashamed of her part in it."

"What part?"

So they told her. A story that could have been her own, a curious young woman, without the caution or wisdom of age or experience tempering her eagerness. A downward path with each step rationalized. For the greater good.

"You told him what we're doing?" Jerry guessed, his eyes sharp in spite of the revelation. "He agreed to help?" Gwen nodded. Jerry said to Lea, "With this to work with, it should be easier to find a synthetic replacement?"

Lea's expression went vague with intense thought. "I do wish we had a proper laboratory, though, it would cut even that time in half." After a moment, she shook herself out of her reverie. "What's he like, this green-knight? He's not hurt, or on the run, is he?"

"He's fine," Gwen said. "He's young – maybe not even twenty. I don't know if Camelot knows about him specifically, but he and his friend aren't being hunted."

"Yet," Jerry said briefly.

"What's his friend like?" Lea asked softly, gazing into the gleaming dark-green vial.

"He's a curly-haired Texan," Gwen said. "Who wears combat boots and whistles and fixes engines."

"And they found their way to us…" Lea met their eyes smiling with a hopeful expression. "Good luck at last?" Jerry hooked one arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to kiss her temple.

"I'll have to talk to them first, tell them," Gwen said. And hope Merlin still agreed to help them…

"We'll drive over at first light," Jerry promised.

The light from the van followed her a dozen paces, before thinning and vanishing in conjunction with the closing of the door. The breeze whispered, raising goose-bumps on her exposed skin; the turbines ground above her. Shudder-rusty-_squeak_, silent-smooth-oiled.

She reached the camper, but couldn't bring herself to enter. Instead she eased down to the single narrow step, hugging her arms to her for warmth and comfort, feeling the rain-moisture seep through her the seat of her overalls a bit.

"Gwen?" A shadow came around the back of the camper, making her jump. Merlin added, "Is something wrong?"

So much.

"Just wondered if you were okay," she said.

"The rain's stopped." He sounded sorry for it, not a bit cold or miserable or exhausted as if he'd had a hard time sleeping. He sounded – rejuvenated. Refreshed. His outline made a strange movement which she watched til her brain identified it, a moment before he handed her the jacket he'd been wearing.

It felt heavy, damp on the outside but dry on the inside. She put her arms in it and her fingertips barely brushed the cuffs. She stifled a chuckle and pulled the edges together around her; the scent that lingered on the garment reminded her of marigolds she'd seen once bordering a cornfield in the town where her father now lived. Rich and spicy and orange, somehow – edible and beautiful, both. Tears pricked her eyes.

"I noticed you went over to your friends' van - are you taking a break from your research?" he added, crossing his arms and sitting on his heels to lean his lower back against the camper. She noticed he'd put his boots back on, at some point.

"I needed to ask them some questions, but… I'm done for now."

"Was it helpful?" he said hopefully, and she thought of those shimmering green drops, measured and added to the test tubes. Given to her so terrifyingly freely.

"Merlin," she said suddenly. "Please don't go to Fort Leonard Wood. Go back home – wherever it is you came from." His head came up in surprise at that, but it was still too dark to see his expression; she thought he'd turned slightly to look toward the west instead of at her, but wasn't sure. "You know you can't – just walk up to Mr. Pendragon's office and knock on the door and introduce yourself and ask for a special dispensation," she added, a bit desperately.

"Gwen," he said, his voice soft and sweet as the wing-flutter of a dove. "Why do they want me?"

She swallowed the lump in her throat and tilted her head up so the tears wouldn't spill down her cheeks – what was it about the rain that seemed to make weeping so easy?

"Once upon a time, there was a country that was rich and happy and prosperous and progressive and generous and powerful," she began, taking refuge in the way her mother had begun. Bright and hopeful and impatient and naïve – a bit like America itself, maybe. "Then one day, the money disappeared. Not the dollars and cents in everyone's pockets, walking down the streets, but in the banks and companies. And the government itself was broke."

"I know this story," Merlin said, but not as though he was impatient for her to answer his question. "Brother fought brother and neighbor fought neighbor and the balance of power shifted from the cities to the farmlands. Both sides to the middle."

Gwen felt her eyebrows rise, and covered her surprise at the green-knight's unexpected intelligence by tucking stray wisps of her hair behind her ears with the fingertips that protruded past his jacket-cuffs. "You're right," she said. "But did you know, that fighting was not just man against man, but city against city, in some cases state against state. Coast against coast. They didn't realize for many years, but some of those weapons they used, biological and chemical, had longer-lasting side effects than anyone anticipated."

"The earth was wounded," he said, troubled. "Weakened – exhausted."

Close enough. "And then – a miracle," she said, tempering her sarcasm to avoid offending her companion. "Or at least, a genetic mutation evolved to answer the new crisis. People like you. And then, people like Pendragon the first." Though the sunrise would take place behind them, behind the camper in the eastern sky, the dark was lifting. She could see that his eyes were on her. "My mother wanted to work for him," Gwen added, "when she was a little girl. She didn't quite make it; he had a heart attack and died young and the current Mr. Pendragon – Uther – took over. And he was a businessman, more than a philanthropist."

"What?" Merlin said. She decided she'd have to change her opinion of him; inexperienced or uninformed did not mean simple-minded. It was brave and smart to ask for clarification, rather than pretend a false understanding, as so many people would do, in his place.

"The organized efficiency of your kind of skill turned into controlled production and expanding profits," she tried to explain. "A corporation, not a public service. My mother worked for _him_ – she told me, they were trying to quantify and reproduce what you do, so that the green-knights employed by Camelot could be released from service." He remained silent and she couldn't yet read his expression; she felt compelled to add, "By this point they were searching your kind out at the earliest age, press-ganging them and keeping them under lock-and-key, sending them out under armed guard. For their own protection, they said at first. And later – they didn't even bother making excuses."

"But your mother," Merlin said. "She was a scientist, she helped to – make the formula?"

"No one person had the whole thing, I understand," Gwen told him. "Which is why it's been so hard for us to re-create it."

"But that doesn't answer-" Merlin said, but was interrupted by the sound of the cab door opening. Gwaine emerged and shut the door behind him, firmly without slamming it, then sauntered close enough to be considered joining them. He stretched as he came, but he said nothing, breathing deeply of the chill damp. Merlin finished, "Why they still want me? Is it only to stop me giving away what they want to make money selling?"

"The reason my mother left Camelot labs," Gwen said – more carefully now, though she wasn't entirely sure why she should feel self-conscious for Gwaine to hear this, in addition to Merlin. "She never liked to talk about it – I thought maybe because it was because of me, you know, because she had a child. But last night I found out – this morning my friends told me…" She sighed, and started again, dully. "When they started work on the fertilizer formula, many of the green-knights participated voluntarily. Agreed for tests to be run on them – procedures and even experiments. But, my mother told me, time passed and they couldn't find a solution and then–"

"Their voluntary participation became involuntary?" Gwaine said ironically, leaning against the side of the camper above them.

She tipped her head back to see that the sunlight now shone on the blades of the turbine, at the highest point, like a pinwheel dipping into liquid gold. "Yeah."

Neither of them said anything. She wasn't sure what she should to do with the night's revelation – keep on helping the others toward the goal of a commonly-distributed synthetic fertilizer, or not, as her mother had finally chosen – but felt that voicing the dilemma, might help her decide. And maybe Merlin had a right to voice his opinion.

"I found something else out," she confessed. "Because of that sample you gave me." She looked down at Merlin. "They use it. In their fertilizer formula. The green blood." It was light enough for her to see the boy's brows pull together in a faint frown.

Gwaine pushed upright and strode three steps away from the camper, scowling toward his combat boots, before turning abruptly to face them both – though he only looked at her. And at his expression, Merlin pushed to his feet; she did the same, sidestepping from the single stair to put the comfortable solidity of her vehicle at her back.

"You said, they use it," Gwaine said deliberately. "Not _used_, as in, they developed the formula which is now made without. _Use it_, as in actively, still. Today."

She didn't dare turn her head to see Merlin. It felt – incongruously, and she resisted the feeling as unfair, though that didn't do anything but deepen the guilt – as if she herself had made the discovery and decision to use _his_ blood, to take without his permission and cooperation. She felt sick at the thought of his clear blue eyes as he said _okay_, as she tied off the pulse point in his upper arm and swabbed the medial cubital vein to the inside of his elbow and slipped the syringe needle into his bloodstream.

A tear tumbled down her cheek, bringing Gwaine's quietly-furious face into greater clarity in her vision. "Don't bring him there," she told him. "They'll take him and–"

His expression changed abruptly, eyes going wide and vacant, jaw dropping open – then he rounded on Merlin with the same startling rapidity. "You said, the way you heard it, they simply never came home. Then your ma skipped town with you – ended up in an isolated holler in the backwoods – told you your father was lost. Maybe to stop you wanting to know more, find out more, find him, meet him – to keep you as far from Camelot as she could."

Grind-squeak-moan. And Gwaine swallowed deliberately.

"That snagger," he went on, his tone more quiet and calm. Also more deadly, and Gwen felt her spine straighten, as much at that as the mention of the drug. "They're not putting it in the fertilizer to control everybody, like Freya's dad thought. They're using it on the green-knights that they've already got there."

Gwen turned, slowly and incrementally, to see from the very corner of her eye, Merlin gazing down into his open hands. Then he wrapped his arms around his chest, shoulders hunching in a way that twisted her heart with an echo of the apparent pain and fear, and gazed into the distance, away from the two of them.

Gwaine took two steps toward him, but not into his line of vision. He said in a low voice, "What do you want to do? Stay here while I go finish business, then we hightail it for Texas, picking up Freya and Gaius on our way?"

Merlin didn't answer. Didn't speak at all, for the space of three heartbeats. Then he said, "If they kept us to take blood from… there's a chance that my father is still alive, there in Leonard Wood."

Gwaine's face twisted slightly. "Oh Merlin… How long has it been? Fifteen years?" He glanced at her, and she felt the same. Giving hope might be crueler than denying it, at this point.

Merlin's hurt-contemplative frown didn't change. He turned toward her – not really looking at Gwaine as his gaze swept past his friend – not meeting her eyes either. "Are you going to keep trying to reproduce the formula?" he asked. "One that works without our blood?"

Her breath caught in her throat at the purity and generosity of his assumption. "Yes," she said huskily. "Now that we have a sample to work from. And maybe you could – maybe you could stay with us, with the group? Help with the research…"

"Lab rat," Gwaine said bitterly, and Gwen wanted to slap him. Except he was too far away, and it wouldn't help her case with Merlin.

Who didn't appear offended – perhaps he didn't understand the term. Merlin only looked at her. "I have to go," he said simply. "I have to find out. I have to know. If it was your father…"

Gwen thought of her father, who'd made the decision a decade ago, to quit moving, to settle with a plump new wife and a plump new baby in a small town near the Iowa border. If he hadn't explained – no matter that childish helplessness and temper had initially rejected – if he hadn't told her he loved her at goodbye, assured her where he would be and that she always had a place with him if she wanted or needed it…

"What are you going to do?" she said. "How can you hope to find that out? It's been fifteen years, and never more than a rumor. Nothing but a feeling that Pendragon might have dirty hands under those fancy clean gloves."

Gwaine glanced back at Merlin, who didn't respond. "If he's determined," the Texan told her, "I'll stick with him, try to see that he doesn't get himself in trouble. It's possible…" he hesitated over another, less sure glance at his friend, "I can use a connection or two, get a job at Camelot."

"Recon?" she suggested sardonically, indicating his semi-military garb. He grinned, and a sudden giddy feeling of wide-open possibilities frightened her – she didn't know whether to protest or applaud the idea. To prevent, or support.

"If you can do that, then so can I," Merlin said quietly.

Gwen opened her mouth to _protest_ then, but Gwaine – even through a troubled frown of his own – said, "We can talk about it. Wait til we get there, scout things out before we make a move."

And the first time he got a nosebleed or a paper-cut… Gwen said, "Wait."

"What?" they said at the same time.

The soles of her boots, firmly squelched in an inch of mud, felt like they were hovering unsteadily about a foot off the ground. "I may… have an idea."

"Well, let's hear it," Gwaine demanded, unimpressed.

Wild idea. And she wasn't ready to share all of it; it hadn't yet coalesced in her own mind, but. "Jerry and Lea," she said, pointing. "I could ask if there's any way of disguising Merlin's blood." That silenced Gwaine anyway, Merlin was watching her with habitual quiet. "You've still got tinkering to do with the engine, right?" she asked. "Just – give me an hour, before you leave?"

They looked at each other, and Gwaine shrugged. Suddenly in a hurry – and resenting the feeling that she had something to prove to either of them – she rummaged in cupboards and tossed out items that were vaguely appropriate for breakfast.

"Thank you," she whispered to Merlin, returning his jacket as she grabbed her own from her clothes cabinet, just behind where he was seated. He gave her a shy smile – reserved and uncertain, but willing to trust. Like a little brother suspecting a trick, a practical joke, but hoping to be wrong.

Gwaine, though, came back outside to watch her approach the van bumping over the rough field toward them.

…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

"Absolutely not," Gwaine declared, dropping the rod that had propped the engine open into place, and shutting the dented green hood with an emphatic bang.

Gwen raised hands to hips, focusing on Gwaine as if she instinctively knew he was the one to convince. She wasn't wrong; Merlin didn't mind either way.

"It's still a mostly free country, I can go there if I want to," she told Gwaine heatedly. "If you can get a job and infiltrate – if _he_ can get a job and infiltrate – so can I!"

"Why do you want to?" Merlin asked, squinting up into nearly-noon sun, only slightly obscured by high thin clouds. He was drawing the veins of a maple leaf he'd been sketching in the drying mud with a twig while Gwaine worked; it was one of a dozen he'd put on a larger rendering of the entire tree on the bare ground. Nothing better to do while Gwaine banged and scraped and muttered inside the engine.

"Because with access to a real lab, the work will go much faster on formulating a replacement for the fertilizer that uses actual blood," Gwen explained. "But we can't just walk in and ask to use it – if I work there a while I can figure out how to gain access for Jerry or Lea or the others."

"What?" Gwaine said sarcastically, wiping each finger separately on his rag. "Stage a coup? Spark an uprising? Lead a strike?"

"I can get a feel for how many people there actually know and support this terribly unethical system, and I can–"

Merlin felt a bit like a child again, listening to one of his mother's rare arguments with Gaius, the specifics of which had – as the old man said more than once – gone right over his head. But he understood that Gwen thought, if her mother carried any guilt for creating the formula, she could balance the scales by helping make it a different way, and the need to use green blood would be irrelevant.

She finished, "Anyway, it doesn't matter why I want to go. I've proved I can help disguise Merlin, and I've got a vehicle – I can be in Leonard Wood before you, even!"

Gwaine stared at her with an odd look on his face, and she crossed her arms over her chest, defiantly.

Merlin braved a distraction. "How is that supposed to work, again, the disguise?"

"It's a one-hundred-to-one ratio," she said. "I take so much blood from Gwaine, since he's type O-Neg, and inject it into one of your veins. Takes one minute to circulate through your body, another five and you'll bleed red enough to fool anyone. Only, your body will probably cycle through it in forty-eight to seventy-two hours, so you'll need me to keep performing the process."

"It won't hurt him, will it?" Merlin asked, and Gwaine gave him a sardonically-raised eyebrow.

"He'll never miss it," Gwen promised, a little sourly.

Merlin toyed with the stick, hugging his knees. "Is it going to – stop me being able to grow things?" he asked. And felt the weight of their gazes, but didn't look up to read their expressions.

"I don't think so," Gwen said, her voice softened. "I mean, you're not going to want to use your ability in Leonard Wood anyway, are you? And the green tint comes back."

"Merlin, I doubt it," Gwaine sounded just as kind, but more sure. Merlin looked up at him curiously. "Look, if you were born like this, there isn't anything a scientist can do to change you. Not really. Not permanently. I wouldn't worry about it."

He considered Gwaine's words, then nodded, and pushed to his feet, adding, "I think she should come." Better with them than coming by herself, he felt. Better cooperation than competition.

Gwen nodded victoriously, barged her way into the camper and began to clatter around obscurely.

Gwaine grunted, hoisted their goatskin pack, yanked open the passenger door, and crammed it into a storage space behind the single long bench seat. "Least this way, we don't show up at the gate five hours after her and they're waiting for us because she tipped them off."

It was his tone, more than his words, that put a cold twist in Merlin's stomach. "You think she'd do that?" he asked, in a low voice. "You don't trust her?"

Gwaine grimaced in dissatisfaction, checked to see that Gwen was still inside the camper. "No, I don't think she'd sell you out, Merlin. Not unless… well, people make different choices, sometimes, than what you'd expect, when it's their life or safety or freedom on the line." Merlin watched him solemnly – and Gwaine's more habitual carefree grin came out like the noonday sun, as he slung his elbow awkwardly but affectionately around Merlin's neck. "And you – you, my friend, hauled my heavy carcass two hundred yards cross-country, 'stead of jack-rabbiting when you had the chance."

"Me and Freya," Merlin corrected.

Gwaine laughed softly and nodded. "All right. You and Freya."


	8. Fort Leonard Wood

**Chapter 8: Fort Leonard Wood**

Gwen woke slowly with the deceleration of the camper.

Eyes and mouth and soul all felt cobwebby with the grogginess of a sleep that was needed, but not of the right kind, and not enough. Jarred and jolted by bald tires over ruinous road and the physical wariness of her position, trying to remain invulnerable as she slept on the bench seat of a moving vehicle between two young men she'd only met yesterday.

That wariness had faded to a cranky ache in muscles and joints, especially her neck, but she was resentful of the camper's wordless suggestion that she should rouse. Vaguely she was aware that her arms had loosened from a defensive hug of her chest, that her head and upper body had slipped sideways toward Merlin by the passenger door. Her cheek rested now against the pad of his deltoid muscle, and she could smell marigolds, but she wasn't as bothered by that idea, as if it had been Gwaine.

Then Gwaine said quietly, "Gwen. Almost there. Gate guards."

She grunted and too late thought, _that was not ladylike.._. Blinking blearily, she found the coarsely upholstered seat with her hand, between Merlin's knee and hers, used it to push herself stiffly upright. She'd only been to Leonard Wood four times in her life. There were, she understood, originally five entrances into the city, when it had served as a military installation.

Now, just this one. And only one lane of traffic – more were not needed – with the others blocked with rubble. Gwaine slowed and then stopped the camper to wait their turn behind a cylindrical fuel truck; two of the armed guards riding atop the tank in the rear eyed them in a casual but practiced way. Having no intention of hijacking their precious delivery of gasoline, probably up from the gulf coast, she ignored them.

Three hours it had been since they'd put Gwen's calculations to the test. Draw blood from Gwaine's medial cubital, inject it in Merlin's vein – ten minutes later a stick of a finger on his opposite hand made liar of the label, _green_-knight. So it worked. But she wasn't stupid enough to think, there might not be other side effects. Gwaine wouldn't have lied about his medical history. But with every transfusion – if she understood the concept correctly – there was danger of the recipient body rejecting the donor material. After half an hour with no adverse reaction, they'd taken off down the road, leaving Jerry and Lea and the rest of the community to their work synthesizing the blood component.

But now – Merlin looked very pale, still passed-out asleep against the side of the door and the window; he seemed to be completely oblivious to the changes of the vehicles and Gwaine's voice.

She met Gwaine's eyes with a wordless concern as he glanced at his friend, but turned back to the sleeping boy as the truck ahead of them shuddered and lurched its authorized way onto the fort, the guards perched atop the tank ducking their heads to pass under the overhang of the gate structure. Gwaine faced forward, and it was their turn to suffer scrutiny.

"Get him up, will you," Gwaine said to her, terse with seriousness as he let up on the brake to roll forward.

The pair of armed guards were waiting for them on either side of the drive-way. The male was smoking; the female adjusted the black braided holster-and-belt around her waist, leaning to toss a comment and a laugh into the door of the guard-bunker – of a size similar to her camper – at an unseen third.

"Merlin," she said quietly, shaking his shoulder. "Hey, Merlin, wake up, we're here."

He startled awake, those amazingly-blue eyes flaring wide open with a sudden sharp intake of breath – and for a brief instant he looked at her as an absolute stranger – before recognition relaxed instincts.

It made her think, fight or flight. _Fight_ was on her left, rolling down the window and preparing an easy grin for the female guard; _flight_ on the opposite side, rubbing his eyes and gathering his wits. And probably she was easing her own tension with a bit of pointless inanity.

"How you guys doing?" Gwaine said in greeting. "End of the shift yet? Or is Aredian still cracking the whip on your hours?"

They didn't think it was funny. They didn't know him; he wasn't one of them to joke about their boss with. Would he please pull into the open-ended hangar ahead and to the side and prepare for a full-vehicle search.

"Oh, come on," Gwaine said – Gwen was relieved to see he had the sense to complain _after_ he'd pulled ahead, out of earshot – "I worked for one of Aredian's contractors, I'm not a complete outsider."

She'd heard the story of Dottie and the trailer of bounties and the escape – Gwaine's signed credentials lost along with the jacket of his unofficial uniform. But gate guards didn't take anyone's word for anything, and the fence patrols were rumored to shoot first and ask questions later.

Once under the curved corrugated iron roof of the drive-through hangar, Gwaine shifted the camper into park, turned off the engine, and handed her the key. Two other guards, dressed in unrelieved black and also armed, waited for them; Merlin fumbled at the door until she reached across him to grab the door handle.

"Open everything," they were told. "Every compartment."

"Even the cabinets in the camper?" Gwen said incredulously. No one smiled; it was not a joke.

"I'll do it," Gwaine volunteered, reaching below the steering wheel for the release lever for the engine hood.

A third guard – the smoker – joined the other two, herding Gwen and Merlin back to the wall. The green-knight was tensely silent but not panicking, she thought. She hoped.

"Arms out at shoulder-level, feet apart," she was told – she met Merlin's eyes and gave him a supportive, encouraging nod.

The search was impersonal, noninvasive – though the harsh smoke did tend to drift annoyingly into her face. The guard was not cruel or humiliating, just thorough. Gwen told herself – tried to project to Merlin – _just relax, there's nothing for them to find_. None of the research or the equipment was illegal; the cables and connections to drain electricity from the wind turbine were dismantled and packed in innocuously separate components and compartments.

They heard Gwaine inside the camper with the second guard, clattering cabinetry and drawers open. "Yeah, we've been here before… yes, we know the rules and laws and intend to follow them… Just looking for a job, y'know? Maybe something in security – then we can all be friends, right?…"

The third was slowly circumnavigating the vehicle with a plate-sized convex mirror on an angled stick, to check the undercarriage, the roof of the camper, the cab's recesses – finally stopping to study and poke at the engine. Gwaine was hustled from the back of the camper, received by the smoker, who'd just allowed Merlin to drop his arms.

"Before you do," Gwaine told the guard – thin as a wire and as strong, probably from having to prove that strength to more muscular comrades – "I'm declaring the knife in my left side-pocket."

Facing them, he lifted his arms as the guard began the pat-down, and gave Merlin a grin and a nod. It seemed to Gwen that there was still something tight in his expression, and the green-knight who knew the Texan better, didn't relax.

The knife was found – but nothing else that the wiry guard took exception to – and Gwaine was about-faced and backed up to them. Gwen felt a growing yet undefined nervousness; at the same time, she was glad for his broad-shouldered presence between her and the three guards – at and in and around her camper, her mother's camper, and it didn't feel to her _routine_ like the other times, did it feel that way to Gwaine? Inside the camper, something smashed.

Gwen took a step forward. Another crash, this time sounding like multiple breakages.

"Hey!" she said indignantly. Her head said, _accident_. Her gut wasn't so sure, and twisted with the uncertainty. Her feet wanted to move forward to check. Fast. All her _things_.

Gwaine grabbed her, yanking her back and tucking her against him, one long strong arm over her shoulder and crossing her body. "Hey, ssh," he said in a low voice in her ear. "Ssh. Take it easy."

The one guard still outside turned – deadly serious and tautly wary – hand on his sidearm in complete readiness. His smoke trailed forgotten from clamped lips, eyes glittering at them through the cloud.

Gwen was sure for another moment that she was still in the cab of the camper, snoozing on Merlin's shoulder, trapped in a nightmare – but the sound of splintering wood and ripping cloth sounded from inside the vehicle assured her she was stark wide-awake, and – they were violating her home. She kicked, struggling against Gwaine's hold, cursing him – ineffectively, his arm and body were iron – then screaming out obscenities her mother wouldn't have approved of. Didn't matter; she was ignored.

Part of her was sure she was going to wiggle free any minute, rush forward to stop the wanton destruction of her property. Part of her wondered where Gwaine's other arm was.

He twisted her sideways, and she saw his hand fisted in the shoulder of Merlin's shirt and unbuttoned jacket – maybe to keep the boy from bolting. Merlin was ashen under his disheveled black hair, eyes dark and locked on the door of the camper, lips pressed together. He looked shorter, somehow, and she saw that he was crouched slightly, leaning away from Gwaine's hold.

If he ran, they would shoot, Gwen was sure of it. Maybe with a shouted warning, but he wouldn't listen, and then – right in the back without hesitation, she was sure of it. It didn't matter what color his blood was, it would be _everywhere_.

Gwen wrestled Gwaine for a moment more, but he realized her direction had changed and allowed her to grab hold of Merlin, fiercely around his rib cage with both arms. His breathing was so fast it was almost panting, and she could feel his heart fluttering in panic.

And the sounds of petty, mean destruction continued.

Merlin was aware enough to bring his arms up around her shoulders, and she pressed her face hard into the front of his shirt, tears squeezing from her eyes. He trembled and she inhaled, desperately seeking the peace of that row of marigolds alongside a field of ripening corn, blowing with a welcome breeze. Gwaine was still behind her; she felt his chest against her back, felt him speak with a genuine anger that made her feel cold, and glad it was not directed at her.

"Why are you doing this? There's no need for this."

No answer.

"Come on, stop it!" Gwaine said, more loudly. He stepped back, letting go of Merlin and breaking his own contact with Gwen. "This isn't searching, it's–"

The sound of another motor interrupted him, maybe saved him from stupidity committed in an impulse of chivalry and righteous anger. A smaller, sharper motor – and just outside the hangar. Gwaine stopped, turning to look. Merlin released Gwen, who swiped at her face to dry it – one of the guards appeared at the door of the camper, spoke tersely behind him, and his comrade appeared as he moved down on the step.

Over Gwaine's shoulder, she saw the motorbike first. Five to ten years old maybe, a Harley-Masterson, compact black and beginning-to-rust chrome.

And the young man watching the guards – watching all of them, as he kicked the prop down, was someone she knew instantly, though they'd never met, and it was years since she'd seen even a picture of him in one of the eight-page months-late newspapers.

The years had been generous to him. He wore black as well, on a body comparable to Gwaine's for height and breadth and obvious muscling. Denim trousers, professionally-made boots, but years newer than Gwaine's, leather jacket over what looked like genuine jersey-material shirt, expensive because it was delicate rather than durable. His blonde hair was spiked on top from the windy ride. His eyes she couldn't see from the distance, but she remembered them light-colored from the photo, the poor black and brown tones of smudged newsprint.

The man's son, himself, arrogance and privilege in every line of his body. The heir to the evil empire. Pendragon the third, first name Arthur.

"What's going on here?" he said.

…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

Pulling up in front of the headquarters building at sunset, Arthur cut the Harley's engine and slouched on the bike's saddle, looking out across the cornfield where once, he understood, had spread a paved lot, necessary because everyone owned a vehicle, and sometimes two. Now, the few spindly dry stalks left after the harvester had lumbered its jerky, smoky way through, rattled gently in the breeze, gilded by the last rays of the dying sun into something almost tragically magnificent. In another week it would be planted with winter wheat; today it was a silent, bare, empty testimony to the fact that death was a part of the cycle of life.

He wasn't ready to go inside, yet. The ride back from the fort's front gate had not been long enough to settle the turmoil in his heart over the incident he'd interrupted.

His whole life, whenever he'd walked into a room, he'd been aware of a unique phenomenon. That every eye turned to him, every conversation held a minute pause – and sometimes a change in direction. As a child, he'd found it intimidating because he hadn't understood it. As a boy, he'd decided to love it because it meant he was his father's son. As a young man, he found he couldn't ignore the feelings of isolation and discomfort that followed.

Couldn't be helped. No one's fault. But there it was.

Today, he'd been a little glad. There in the search-hangar, his arrival had interrupted – something, instinct told him. Something undefined, but something… undesirable. Maybe even terrible.

The three newcomers, pretty obvious. Vehicle search – also unremarkably routine. But the tension in the curly-haired young man's body, the tears on the face of the short plump girl with frizzy black hair as she dared to cuss out the guards – that was new. Hands on side-arms, readiness to use and clear threat in the guards' attitudes, that was new.

"What's going on here?" Polite question, ordinary question.

Answered politely enough by the three guards. "Orders to search, sir. Rumors of radicals attempting infiltration."

First he'd heard of it. "Okay, but it must be obvious that no one else is hiding in there."

Pause for uncomfortable reflection. "Yes, sir – additional orders regarding the smuggling of black-market goods."

He'd let the silence hang. "Well, have you found any evidence of that? Any contraband, any indication of hidden compartments in the vehicle?"

Pursed lips, exchanged glances. "No, sir."

"Okay, then." Usually he was self-conscious about throwing his weight around, but in this case he was happy to tell the three, "You can get back in your vehicle and go about your business."

The guards had retreated to watch like crows on telephone wires. The curly-haired young man had gone to the engine, the girl to the back of the green-and-white camper. Arthur had drifted closer to the third, a tall boy but young, with childishly-messy black hair, a quiet manner, and fear in his blue eyes.

"Ever been to Leonard Wood before?" Arthur had asked. Quick shake of the head, shy wary glance. "I'm sorry this is your first impression of us."

Pause while both of them watched the other boy check and fiddle and finally lower the hood; the girl exclaimed unseen over the damage done, sound of broken glass crunched and shuffled, tears in her voice.

Arthur had added somewhat lamely, "What are you here for?"

The tall kid had shrugged, hunched his shoulders inward a little, not meeting his eyes though that wasn't an unusual reaction for Arthur, meeting strangers. "Looking for work?" he'd suggested almost uncertainly.

"Doing what?" Arthur was unused to starting conversations, but he did feel bad about their situation.

"Gwaine knows someone in security…" He'd gestured to the other boy, who beckoned him to the cab. The kid had obeyed, with another shy glance – a farewell more polite than simply walking away.

The other young man had spoken into the back of the camper before shutting the door – but when he'd turned to Arthur, there had been a surprisingly easy, cheerful grin on his face. "S'cuse us," he'd said. "We've got to find a place to park this thing for the night, and something for dinner…"

"And clean up?" Arthur had suggested, trying to be sympathetic. "Good luck with your job hunt… it's Gwaine, is it?"

Slight hesitation, before the other had come to meet him readily enough, leading with his right hand. "Gwaine Southerland, out of Texas. I know who you are."

"Ah. Yes… I'll put a word in for you with Wilfred Aredian, he does most of the official hiring and firing for my father's company."

"You don't have to put yourself out for us," Gwaine had said. Perfectly friendly, as though nothing had happened. As though nothing had almost happened.

Arthur had retreated, then. "In any case, welcome to Fort Leonard Wood. I'll see you around."

Staring his eyes dry over the cornfield now, he wondered if his words would prove true, or not.

Arthur took the stairs, heavy concrete but worn smooth around the edges, yanking himself up and around corners by the painted metal handrail – but pushed open the door of the second floor.

There were a few more people up here, wearing mostly the austere black his father commanded for the guard and preferred for everyone else, but Arthur was used now to accepting quietly-murmured deferential greetings and avoiding the connections and expectations begun by eye contact. Across the main central hall that connected the two wings, to the office that overlooked the circular drive and former cornfield at the front of the building.

The glass here – like everywhere – was about half original, half replaced due to breakages over the years. Because it was HQ and the Pendragon home, plate-glass had been used again rather than the cheaper and more expeditious solution of boarding it up, but the new glass was always obvious by the faint tint of green or sepia, the lesser degree of clarity. Glass, but not the quality it had been, before the Collapse. As was so often the case in the histories he read. He wondered what other inanimate casualties there might have been.

Low cabinets lined the window. One large fern stood in the corner, fat and a fascinatingly lurid green – silent but emphatic testimony to the importance of the man behind the desk, even more so than the rare watercolor on the wall behind him, which Arthur had never seen him so much as glance at. He was allowed to waste fertilizer on his houseplant.

Wilfred Aredian. As old as Arthur's father, but taller and leaner. Craggy face which no smile had ever dared approach, immaculately shaved every day. Brown hair kept short, showing neither gray nor white, just lightening all together by degrees, fading in company. Arthur privately thought, even Aredian's hairs didn't dare to be individual, much less rebelliously anything other than what he wanted.

It was a moment before the man looked up from the ledger open on the desk before him – only Uther Pendragon deserved the consideration of immediate attention, it seemed, and his son had never dared push for inclusion. Eyes of lightest, lifeless blue gazed at Arthur unblinking.

"Good afternoon," Arthur said, trying to force some steel into his backbone. Unless Aredian retired at the same time as his father, _he_ would someday be giving this man orders. They both knew it, he guessed, but if Aredian felt the same awkward uncertainty of behavior, he never showed it.

"Good afternoon. What can I do for you, sir." Aredian's voice resonated like a holler into an empty cistern.

"I spoke to the gate guards this afternoon," Arthur said. "Is there a new concern about a renegade attack? Upswing in black market activity?"

"Indeed." Aredian was unsurprised, cool as marble. "I have given the report already to Mr. Pendragon."

"Oh," Arthur said inanely. The man might as well have said, _you'll have to talk to your father to get any more answers_. "One more thing. If someone named Gwaine Southerland comes looking for a job, I would appreciate you giving him any opportunity you're able to. And-or his two companions."

"Gwaine… Southerland." Aredian didn't blink, didn't look away – he never did. "Of course."

"That will be all," Arthur said, feeling alike a six-year-old in short-pants, standing in his father's shoes. "Have a good evening."

"Good evening, sir."

Arthur crossed the hallway, entered the stair, and continued to the third floor hoping, if the curly-haired Texan ever interviewed with Wilfred Aredian, that he appreciated what Arthur had done for him.

His father and mother had already filled their plates and begun the meal when he walked into the room; the maid was busy assembling a smaller tray to deliver to Gran's room. Arthur seated himself at his father's left, across from his mother, aware of both reproving glances without meeting them directly.

"I'm sorry I'm late," he said. Not because he was, or because they needed the explanation – but something needed to be said, and this was the best he had. "I stopped to have a word with Aredian."

His father cleared his throat between bites of roast beef. "About what?" Mild enough, but his father's questions always felt heavier to him than anyone else's.

"He said we're on alert for radicals entering the post? Black-market smuggling?" His father only grunted, leaning forward to shovel another bite of potatoes-and-gravy. Arthur, carving his own potato more slowly, dared, "What's that all about?"

Uther Pendragon finished his bite, swallowed deliberately, and took a swallow of iced lemon-water before answering. "Last month. An employee stole some… valuable materials from the production plant. Escaped the fort before we could lock-down and catch him."

Arthur thought about that. After the hijacking of one of their shipments two months ago, he appreciated the need for increased vigilance, but surely that would focus on outward-bound vehicles then?

"We're looking for someone dangerous?" he asked. "Possibly trying to bring in explosives or other weapons?"

His mother shifted uncomfortably, but didn't speak. His father said, "Aredian and the gate guards know what to look for. Now, let's talk about your time in Distribution – I want to hear what you've learned, thoughts about what works and what doesn't, your impression of the employees down there."

Arthur sighed at the cooling ruin of potato on his plate, and rather wished his mother had taken control of the conversation, after all.

…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

_No stars tonight_, Merlin thought, sitting on one of the last sections of curb left, a stone's toss from the green-and-cream camper parked in the street. Overcast, and the half-full moon low over the buildings had a fuzzy halo.

It would rain tomorrow. And the wind was picking up – raw and chilly and damp, it would be. He didn't mind that. It was just as exhilarating in its own way as the first warm breath in spring. As waking up under layers of blankets and furs to a deep and sparkling frosting of snow. As sprawling on a grassy incline weighted with noon-sun's rays and a full-body sweat.

Under the circumstances, it was easier than coming here in midsummer, and spring might have broken his heart.

But this sort of weather did tend to make other people cross, and he really didn't think Gwen could get much worse without losing control of her temper entirely. It was a lucky thing that neither of them minded him making himself scarce, and that Gwaine seemed not to take her mood personally.

He looked up as the camper door opened – the squeak ominous and irritating in the tense silence, though that was better at least than the girl actively trying to pick a quarrel.

"Goodnight, Gwen." Gwaine stepped down with a large square burden in his arms, indistinct in the low light from the camper that was one of the street's only sources of illumination. They were on the edge of the residential district, so it wasn't completely still nor dark, but it was getting late, and he rather thought these people had little time or energy or light – candles, oil-lamps, reliable electricity – to spare for strangers.

Gwen muttered something Merlin suspected he might be glad not to have heard, and banged the camper door shut.

Gwaine hefted the box in his arms – an abandoned crate scrounged from one of the buildings they'd passed, lined with the ruined upholstery of one of the seat cushions – and headed for Merlin. Setting the box down with the rattle of broken glass, Gwaine perched on the curb next to him. "You okay, after earlier?"

Merlin didn't respond. It was a complicated answer, and one he didn't know how to articulate. The gate passage had been terrifying – but if he'd run, he wasn't so sure now, which way he'd have gone. Out and away – or inward. And then to find out as they drove away, the peculiar young man who'd arrived to champion them on the strangest motor vehicle Merlin had ever seen, was the son of the man who'd imprisoned his father and would do the same to him, if he was discovered.

That danger and the present uncertainty were not all that was bothering him, though.

"You know," Gwaine said quietly, lifting his head to gaze down the row of communal apartments. "I could just – give Aredian the report like we said, and you and I can walk back out of here."

"Do you want to?" Merlin asked.

"I… don't think this is about, what I want. I think it's about… what I'm supposed to do. Everything happens for a reason, y'know? I think you've got a purpose and I think mine right now is to help you." Gwaine gave an awkward shrug.

Merlin thought about that. It made him feel self-conscious and he didn't like that, but he guessed Gwaine was right. Sometimes in growing things, he trimmed and straightened and cleared – he didn't suppose the plants and trees always liked it or understood, but they trusted the process.

"In my holler there are daffodils," he said. "First thing up in the spring, little green spears from the dirt, through the snow. Every year the same place, from the bulbs that sleep invisible. The berry bushes spread and saplings sprout as the seeds and nuts are moved and dropped and forgotten by the birds and animals." He paused to breathe and redirect his thoughts around a pang of homesickness, and Gwaine only listened. "Here, it's all… crops. Maybe you can't tell because it's autumn anyway and everything's getting ready to sleep through winter. But–" He laid his palms down on the bare earth just behind the curb they squatted on, lowered himself to lying on his back with arms outstretched. Senses outstretched. "There are no flowers here, Gwaine. No lawns. Not for miles and miles, nothing that isn't specifically useful. And… it's all ignoring me. It doesn't need me."

"That's what's bothering you?" Gwaine looked around, though it was dark and they were hemmed in anyway by the residential buildings. "I suppose they use the fertilizer on everything they need, and leave the rest alone."

"Yeah. It just feels…" He shivered, and didn't finish. It made him feel lonely and useless and it would feel worse to say it.

"Maybe that's for the best," Gwaine said unexpectedly, twisting sideways on the curb to look down at him, and Merlin hauled himself up to his elbows. "Maybe it'll be easier for you to focus on finding out about your father, than if the land and all the trees and plants were – I don't know, screaming for your attention, huh?"

Merlin thought he probably had a very good point. "I didn't think it would be so big, though," he admitted. They were about five miles now, from the gate. And even at the tops of the hills, he hadn't been able to see to the fences and barbed wire Gwaine had assured him marked the perimeter of the whole place. It was three or four times the size of his entire holler. "I don't know how to go about this."

"Jobs first," Gwaine said. "We get a job, we get ration cards. Shouldn't be a problem to find a room or two in one of these buildings, quite a few of the harvest workers will have moved on to find other work elsewhere. Then we just – keep our eyes and ears open." He rested back on one hand, stretching his boots into the road. "I did some asking around earlier when I was hauling off Gwen's junk. She'll be applying to the folks in Production directly, that's in the old hospital, which isn't too far from Camelot HQ."

"HQ?" Merlin said.

"Headquarters. Where Pendragon and his family live, where all his grand high muckety-mucks do their business. That's where I have to go to talk to Aredian first thing. How do you feel about trying for the maintenance crew?"

Merlin shrugged. Cooking or cleaning, was all he had any experience in, since he couldn't exactly utilize his true skills here. "Fine with me."

"You try to work in a kitchen, you're going to be stuck in a handful of places – and probably just in the one room, whereas they need janitors everywhere. And nobody pays attention to the cleaning crew anyway, right? Way I hear it, they're always trading people from one detail to another. It'll be perfect – I bet you find out where your green-knights are and how to get in before me or Gwen."

Gwaine was trying to cheer him up, Merlin knew. It made him a bit nervous, though, to think of meeting new people and going new places by himself – now that he was in the heart of enemy territory. Tiptoeing through a sleeping pack of wolves. And hoping not to disturb the flock of blue-jays in the branches above.

The door of the camper opened one last time, and Gwen stepped one foot out of the rectangle of faint light to heave what looked like a fat cylindrical cushion in their direction. "Here, Merlin!" she called – and by her voice he knew that she was still unhappy about the damage and loss inside her home, but trying to be generous anyway. "Sleep tight."

It bounced and rolled, and Gwaine leaned forward to grab it – an overstuffed or oversized quilt – by one of the ties holding its shape. "You get the extra sleeping bag," he said cheerfully, thumping it down on Merlin's middle – reflexively he sat up all the way to grab it so it wouldn't bounce away again. "She gets the bunk – and what do I get."

"A soft patch of ground?" Merlin said, rolling the unusual bedding awkwardly in his lap, trying to figure it out. Sleeping bag – it made him think of the odd blanket-roll Gwaine had used in camp with Dottie.

"I didn't know there was such a thing," Gwaine joked.

"Sure, I'll show you," Merlin offered, getting to his feet. He didn't suppose anyone would mind them huddling up against the west side of the nearest building to shelter from the wind and possible rain. "Is there any way we can share this?"

"It unzips," Gwaine suggested. "But I can stretch out on the cab-seat of the camper, too. Unless you'd rather?"

"No," Merlin said with a small grin. "I'd rather be outside."

…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

In the morning, the whole district was busy like Noble Corner – but without the tension, or even a hint of violence. There were children here, families. Shouting, laughing, hurrying – readying.

Merlin sat at the corner of the building where he'd slept – at the side, not the front – knees drawn to his chest, quietly and unobtrusively savoring the third-to-the-last of the pears for his breakfast. At least, it had been when he'd started.

Gwen had already finished hers. Had disappeared into the camper with a bucket of steaming water – the bucket was hers, the water begged from the closest building whose electric pump and water heater both worked at the moment. Gwaine had wolfed his – Merlin thought of the need for ration cards; if there was nothing they could sell, apparently they'd have to find an official job if they wanted to eat, and not just offer to do a chore or task for someone in exchange for a share of what they had.

Then Gwaine had wandered the length of the street – west almost out of sight, then back toward Merlin – meeting people. Cheerful, friendly, lending a quick hand where it was needed, stopping for a longer chat. Merlin had wanted to – had been excited to do just this when he left the holler – but instinct held him back, here. He felt safer, with his ignorance and inexperience, leaving this sort of first-acquaintance thing to Gwaine.

There were a few vehicles – vans and pick-up trucks, old and well-used like Gwen's camper. People piled into them, sharing rides to more distance work-places, though some walked in groups also. All the children went north, boys at a dead run and little girls in slower more talkative groups, like miniatures of their elders. _School_, Merlin thought, and wondered what it was like here. If it was different than the holler's school, different from Gwaine's in Texas.

Finally only a few older people evidently tasked with the care of very young children, or aiding the handful of women busy with domestic chores, remained. Gwen emerged from the back of the camper to slam the door and round to the driver's seat; Gwaine came at a trot, whistling for Merlin's attention. He pushed himself up and followed – and found himself folding up his long legs between the other two on the bench seat.

Gwen was clean, neat, calm – black curls tamed and held back from her face by two flower-shaped clips. Merlin privately thought it a sure thing that she would find a job among the scientists of Pendragon, she was smart and confident. Compared to the two of them, whose clothing was smudged and would remain so until they had the chance to do the washing; Gwaine still had bruises visible, and judging from the sore spots on his left jaw and cheekbone, so did Merlin.

The hospital where Production was located was an enormous square of red brick. Judging by the windows, the first floor held the tallest rooms, topped by four stories of more regular dimensions. Two black-clad sentries loitered by the doors, occupied watching a pair of workers with hoes turn the soil of a central plot – vegetable garden past harvest, Merlin guessed, noticing a rusty row of wire-frames like those Gaius used for tomatoes.

Gwen parked the camper on an out-of-the-way section of road, and locked the doors once they were outside. "Well," she said, giving them a smile – there was a gleam of excited nerves in her dark eyes, "good luck, you two!"

"Same to you," Merlin said.

"We'll see you back in residential tonight," Gwaine told her. "Maintenance is about seven miles northwest of here, and I don't know how long we'll be kept waiting, either place."

She headed for the door as if she couldn't contain her energy for another second, giving them a backwards wave as she went.

Gwaine added to Merlin, "I don't think she really cares if she never sees us again."

"Of course she does," Merlin said. "She would worry."

"But she would go right about her business," Gwaine countered, and Merlin shrugged noncommittally.

Camelot HQ was also red brick – on the sides and back. In front, it was all glass, two wings stretching far to each side, two stories and a third more compact in the center. Merlin hesitated; it seemed to him that each window was an eye, watching him knowingly, waiting for the perfect time to expose the secret they'd already divined. The dried stalks and leaves of the harvested cornfield shuddered and whispered in a breeze suddenly _cold_.

"You want to wait out here?" Gwaine said, sympathetically keen. "At least you've got that jacket. I'll try not to take too long."

Merlin didn't answer, only stood in place and watched the Texan stride across the cracked pavement of a curved strip of roadway, pull open a door-sized section of the glass wall, and disappear into the dark mouth behind. Brave, that was what Gwaine was.

He felt his solitude, despite the knowledge of people in the building, people in buildings all over the fort, people traveling to and from buildings. All over the fort. And it was a different solitude, standing exposed in the small field before the eyes of Camelot, than it would be tucked up snug in an evergreen.

What would he do, if Gwaine never came out? For whatever reason neither of them could or had anticipated – horrible reasons, innocent reasons. Try to find the maintenance building and a job? Go back to the camper and wait for Gwen? Turn his steps south and out of the fort? And then, to Yelder's Hollow, or Texas? What would he do, if men came out for him. Follow instinct, was all he could do. Run and hide, as long as he was able to. It was Gwaine's safety that concerned him more, and maybe that should have felt strange to him to realize. But there it was.

He took a deep cold breath and let it out, watching the brief white cloud of moisture form and disperse, warm air into cold. _You've got a purpose_, he told himself, repeating Gwaine's words that had felt so true.

To keep a little warmer without huddling to the building – especially this building – he walked, the collar of his brown canvas jacket turned up and hands buried in his pockets, around the cornfield. Eyes half closed, he ventured a wordless greeting to the strange land.

Boredom and lassitude, only, reception without response. It was the difference between hearing and listening, and the land wasn't listening to him.

_ I'm here. You need me. I'm here because you need me._

Unacknowledged. The earth here didn't feel itself in need of anything at all.

_But you do_. So gently and persuasively. _You benefit from those of my kind kept here prisoner. Used. You need us, whether you know it or not_.

Immaterial. An argument more philosophical than practical.

_But there's so much you miss_… Coaxing, pleading, Merlin shared his memories of thick clumps of fat yellow daffodils, carpets of shy violets clustered around oak roots. Hazelnuts and pecans so plentiful they crunched underfoot at every step, birds picking at berries, squirrels stealing acorns because it was their nature, not their need. Shy deer nibbling blossoms that would never be missed, foxes among the mustard flowers, airborne pollen drifting to coat the streams' surface.

"Merlin?"

He blinked and stumbled to avoid walking right into Gwaine, who put out his hand to steady Merlin, amused concern in his dark eyes.

"You're done already?" he said stupidly – then glanced around to try to glean how much time had passed, not an easy thing when the sky was spread with a high gray sheet of clouds.

"It's been an hour and a half," Gwaine said, more amused now than concerned. "I told Aredian a fairly close version of the truth, that I'd gone into the trailer in the night to check on one of the prisoners – got nabbed for my key, choked and knocked out and dragged out of the trailer. Woke up to find it and most of the prisoners gone, the rest of them dead along with Dottie."

"Did they believe you? Are you in trouble?" Merlin said worriedly. Though evidently Gwaine had been allowed to leave the HQ building unsupervised.

Gwaine snorted. "Aredian thinks I'm stupid for checking prisoners alone and with the key while Dottie was asleep – and soft for treating them in such a way that they'd leave me alive, but…" He shrugged. "Man like Aredian, I'd rather have his bad opinion than a good one, I think."

"But if he thinks you're stupid and soft–" Gwaine gave Merlin a warning look, but he wasn't teasing or mocking – "did he give you a job?"

"Ah… no." With a glance that invited and assumed Merlin's company, Gwaine turned, and they started off down the road again. "Not in security. But taking my time with Dottie into account, he said they could use me in the motor-pool. That's two miles northeast of here–"

"In the opposite direction of the maintenance complex," Merlin realized.

"But we can still do both if we hustle. So let's go." Gwaine's wide grin invited Merlin to consider the day an adventure rather than a burden, and Merlin couldn't resist answering it with one of his own, though it felt a little rueful.

They hiked a few minutes in silence, and something occurred to Merlin; another mile, while he tried to find a way to ask a question without hurting Gwaine's feelings. When they came over a hill to see a large lot lined with vehicles he didn't recognize except to realize their use was not for transport of passengers, he still wasn't having any luck, but the Texan cheerfully addressed it himself.

"I think it's as much to keep an eye on me as anything else," Gwaine remarked. "This job with the trucks and tractors. They have only my word for how things happened that night with the prisoners, and even though Dottie was only a contractor, it's probably a concern if I stay here, rather than going back to Texas."

"So you'll have to be careful," Merlin ventured.

Gwaine laughed out loud. "You won't get into trouble because of me, I promise," he said. "But _Careful_ was a horse that never won any races." He gave Merlin a grin that sparkled, and lengthened his stride.

Merlin followed, confused for a moment, then decided, _Must be a Texas thing_.


	9. New Faces, New Places

**Chapter 9: New Faces, New Places**

Yelder's Hollow made a decent first impression on Freya. There was none of the tension of the crowded honeycomb of apartments where she'd grown up, nor the tight distrust of the squatter's camps her father had brought her to, along the path of his ill-fated crusade.

The shops and homes were simple wood, rough painted planks-and-plaster rather than the rusty metal and crumbling concrete she was used to in bigger cities. The glances of the people out and about daily duties were curious instead of suspicious, but rather than approach one of them, she headed for the town's center of communication, the general store.

"If you could point me toward Gaius's cabin?"

Because she didn't figure she could stumble around the forested hills of the holler and find it herself, or wait and hope to recognize the old man when – and if – he came to the town's general store. The scrounged food Merlin and Gwaine had given her when they parted, was gone now, her faded, stained pink shirt tied around her waist til it became necessary to wear for warmth, later in the evening. And she didn't think she was desperate enough for begging.

"Deer-path yonder," was the courteous response of that store's owner, though his speculative gaze followed her.

Up the path, she felt her spirits lifted. The breeze smelled of pine, birds and squirrels flitted about, and even this late in the season it was apparent that Yelder's Hollow was different. It was easy to see Merlin's influence, after wandering through the sparse yellow tufts and bare dry dirt of the rest of the unfertilized land.

She hoped she'd see him again.

The cabin was quaint, and well-tended, which she appreciated. Many a former neighbor had carelessly tossed refuse out of the immediate way and left it, had neglected basic maintenance of whatever shelter they'd chosen. Gaius was obviously poor, but he was just as obviously proud. Half a dozen russet and cream-feathered chickens scuttled nervously as she moved into the dooryard, glancing over the done-for-the-year garden.

And the man she immediately took for Merlin's old friend, stepped out the front door. Patched denim trousers and shirt, tan cap with the bill shading a face drawn and wrinkled, but clean-shaven. He didn't say anything, looking her over with sharp but not unfriendly scrutiny as he limped closer. Probably, she thought, putting two and two together – she was a stranger, but had come to him, specifically…

"I'm Freya," she told him, feeling her spine straighten with a bit of embarrassed defiance to admit her need and her inability – or disinclination – to make her own way in a world where she was hunted for her father's mistakes. "Merlin told me I could come here."

His mouth opened in a silent, _Ah_! and he looked her over again. She was aware of her unwashed state, the too-large fit of the unbleached cotton shirt, her hair tangled and unwashed, the absence of carried supplies or valuables, and lifted her chin a bit more.

"Of course he did," Gaius said, accepting that if she knew the name of his young friend, she was to be trusted. "Your timing is fortunate – if you'd come two days ago, you'd have been dodging a pair of agents. It's safe now, and for Merlin's sake, you're welcome to stay as long as you like–"

"I'll earn my keep," she blurted, and he nodded, unworried.

"Why don't you come in and tell me as much as you're comfortable with," he suggested. "I've got soup on for dinner – I'll add some water and stretch it for two, but I have to stir it or it'll stick." He jerked his head in rough but friendly invitation, and turned to disappear into the cabin without checking to see if she followed.

So she did.

Soup, and a bed in the attic - which had belonged, she remembered, to Merlin's mother.

In the first week, they settled which chores were hers, which were shared, which had been Merlin's. She prowled solitary, gradually learning a wider area around the cabin, and sometimes she sat with Gaius. Sometimes quietly, soaking up the peace and nature of the holler, and sometimes he would talk, or she would. It was fascinating to catch little glimpses of the pre-Collapse world from his stories, and she liked those almost as well as the ones about Merlin.

She told him a bit about her father – a patriot but an outlaw, and killed because of it. She told him a bit more about the trailer, Dottie and Gwaine, Merlin and the night they had escaped. Mostly she told him about places she'd seen, comparing them to his memories, if he'd been there.

Freya was aware of his slight limp, so on the morning he buttoned his old coat and threw a patched canvas tote for supplies over one shoulder, she volunteered to make the trek down into town, and then back up, by herself. Gaius smiled a strange smile, and passed her a little crate lined with dry grass where a couple dozen fresh eggs nestled safely.

"Tell Marty I'll have rabbit skins for him, next time."

Halfway down the trail, she realized he was probably wondering if she'd fill the canvas bag on his account, and head the opposite direction, out of the holler again. And the general store was in view when she realized, she hadn't even considered doing that.

On her way in, she noticed a man crouched on his heels on the plank porch of the store, in the corner and leaning against the support post. Unshaven and greasy-haired, his face was gaunt and his eyes were like burning coals in pits of ash. It was disturbing to see him, but she reacted, instead of with fear or disgust, with a desire to help, as she had been helped.

Inside, Marty was polite and curious, as he filled the order written in Gaius's hand on the scrap of paper. "So, you found Gaius's place."

She hummed agreement and wandered away, indulging her own curiosity and familiarizing herself with the place. With distance and shelves between them, his further questions, though leading, were polite and easy enough for her to side-step.

"That man," she said finally, adjusting the strap of the filled canvas tote over her shoulder and grimacing at the weight and the mild dread of the climb. "Sitting outside, he's a stranger?"

"A beggar," Marty answered. "I don't know why he came here, but if he doesn't leave on his own, we're going to have to… do something," he finished lamely, wiping his hands on the apron tied around his substantial girth.

Freya bridled a bit, but said nothing. Not everyone had the privilege Yelder's Hollow folk enjoyed. And she knew what it meant to be alone and friendless. Wasn't it only fair of her to offer what Merlin had offered to her? Out on the porch again, she ignored the warning rumble of thunder from low gray clouds and the cold bite of the wind on her fingers, to approach the beggar.

He was wary in a way that was alert, but not frightened – her father's age, she thought, maybe a handful of years older. And she sensed none of the danger about him that she'd felt from certain of her father's associates. No, it was more like… someone she had rational reason to fear, and not to trust, but… conversely, _didn't_. It made her think of Gwaine, or Merlin himself, maybe…

Merlin himself, maybe. The man looked up at her and she blinked – his eyes made her think of Merlin's too, and she almost forgot what she was doing, reaching for one of the jars packed into the canvas tote to give him.

"Here," she said, not even bothering to check what was in the can. "But just so you know, they want you to move on."

"I know, but… I can't." The man's voice was hoarse as if from lack of use. He took the can blindly in both hands, his eyes still on her face. "Do _you_ know why this holler is special?"

Freya's breath caught in her throat and her eyes widened – and he noticed. He straightened intently, without standing.

"You do, don't you? I've been looking for this place – oh, I've lost count of the days, lost the feel of communication with the land, it's been so long – but it's not safe to ask. I had to risk – the others just ignored me, but _you_–"

She had the urge to turn and run, as he made to push himself to his feet – but beneath his filthy ragged clothing and unwashed odors, the tremble in his limbs was noticeable. Weakness, fatigue, hunger – maybe even illness. He had not come into Yelder's Hollow with a pack, either.

"Do you know her?" he implored in a low raspy voice. "Do you know him?"

"Who?" she asked warily. Camelot would no sooner send someone like _this_, than it would send someone like _her_, right?

"Hunith," he said, hopefully, fearfully. "And Merlin?"

"How do you know these names?" Freya demanded, glancing around to see if Marty or any of his customers were in earshot. She had the impression that Gaius's adopted family were not well-known to the townspeople.

"You do," he gasped, covering his mouth with one filthy, shaking hand. Tears made his piercing eyes brilliant. "Do you know where they are, where they live? I've been waiting here, but…"

"Um." If this was a former acquaintance, the news of her death years ago, and Merlin's absence more recently, might prove a shock. And one that, given his condition, she did not feel qualified or at all willing to give. "Maybe you should come with me," she said. "I have a friend who might answer your questions." And at the very least, Gaius might give the stranger a bath and a meal, a place to sleep while he decided how much to tell him.

"Thank you," the man whispered.

"I'm Freya," she told him, gripping the strap of the canvas tote and turning to begin their relatively short journey back up the ridge to Gaius's cabin.

"You can call me Balinor," he said.

…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

It took Gwen half of an hour to memorize the procedures of the lab she'd been assigned to. Liquid fertilizer, and evidently they were only one step of the process.

Mix these two ingredients in these proportions, heat to this temperature and decant this measurement of the concoction produced in the lab down the hall. Ten stirs to the left, sixteen to the right, beat it briskly until it forms stiff peaks – pause for sarcastic snicker…

Gwen sighed.

"It's all right if it takes you awhile to understand the process," assured one of her lab-mates, Lindsey, a twig-thin woman closer to thirty than Gwen's age, with a mop of curly chocolate-colored hair. "It can be very confusing, and of course we don't want any mistakes, though that's why it's made in small batches… You can ask me or Howard if you have any questions, any questions at all." And smiled, friendly-sweet and so genuine Gwen knew she would be hard-pressed not to hate her on principle.

Another hour, and Gwen decided it was pity she felt for Lindsey. It was Howard she hated. He hummed incessantly and tunelessly, and his initial response to a question was invariably, "What?" A lazy and stupid opposite of Merlin's curious question.

For the first week, Gwen used eyes and ears. The cafeteria, the apartments, the labs. The gossip was brain-numbingly inane – who spilled what in which room and the chaos caused, who was caught kissing whom in the broom closet, who'd started which rumor in revenge for last month's hottest gossip. Times two-point-four for the family members in residence, some of whom worked in the kitchen or janitorial services for the building.

Not a _hint_ of captives or illicit phlebotomy, or even other workers that didn't socialize or have any clearly defined duties.

The second week, Gwen began tentative queries.

"What do you suppose gives the green color to the component from Lab 2?" Unconcerned shrugs. "Do you suppose it's dye, or a naturally-occurring tint?"

"What?" said Howard.

"Why would they need a dye?" Lindsey said, puzzled. She turned from washing her hands in the sink at the end of the long table with its apparatus that was her work-station.

"Exactly," Gwen said, carrying glassware carefully to her own sink, in the middle of the three tables running the length of the cabinet-lined room. "I think if I could get a sample, and maybe borrow a centrifuge from Lab 1, I could figure out–" She mumbled to a stop; the other two were staring at her with a distress that alarmed her.

"You wouldn't be allowed to do that," Lindsey said.

"And why would you want to?" Howard added dismissively.

Another day.

"What sort of organic source do you suppose they use for the additives in Lab 4?" Gwen said, lingering in the hallway to stare down toward the room where they delivered the fruits of their labors at the end of every day. "Maybe some form of exotic animal manure…"

"_What_?" Howard said blankly, while Lindsey just giggled delightedly, as if she was proud of Gwen for making a joke.

All right then. The last day of the fortnight, Gwen turned to a stranger she sat next to for lunch in the cafeteria – one of the other lab supervisors, she thought.

"Where'd you grow up? What school did you go to?"

The middle-aged man with wrinkled brow and mild eyes shrugged, unconcerned and unoffended by personal questions from a stranger. "I grew up here – went to the post school."

"That's only – through high school," Gwen said, and the man nodded, unperturbed. "Do they teach more than general biology and Earth science? Biophysics? Kinetics? Thermodynamics?"

The man wrinkled his brow at her, smiling in a vaguely puzzled way – whether it was because he had no idea what she referred to, or because he was confused by her purpose in mentioning it. "What for? What we do isn't difficult."

"Don't you ever get curious?" she said. "About the other labs' processes, how the separate ingredients work together to form a uniquely effective result? Whether there's any way to improve the process?"

He leaned a little closer. "You do realize, they pay us extra and give us benefits like private quarters separate from the others on base, in return for us _not_ being curious?"

"But what if–" she started, and he hummed a compassionate interruption.

"Now that, is a dirty word around here." He swung his legs over the bench they shared, rose to his feet and leaned over to grip his tray by both sides. "You're new, so you might not understand. If you want to keep your job here–" he smiled again, kind and sincere – "and you really do, want to keep you job here, just do what you're told. Do the best job you can, show you can be trusted, and you'll be promoted. Best for everyone, don't you think?"

As he ambled away, Gwen looked down at her cooling puddle of canned beans, and laid her spoon down. She wasn't hungry anymore.

She was supposed to meet Merlin at Distribution after her shift, and walk back to the residences to give him his every-third-day shot of Gwaine's concealing blood. What was she going to say to them about her time in Production so far? Other than an evasive, _I'm still new yet, I haven't really asked because they might get suspicious, be patient._

What was she going to tell Merlin? No news is good news? In this case, she rather doubted it, and it made her discouraged and depressed.

"You ready, partner?" Lindsey said cheerfully, stopping next to Gwen's bench with a wide smile.

Howard, lingering inattentive behind her, swiveled round and said, "What?"

It was going to be a long afternoon.

…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

For weeks, Arthur had contemplated his conversation with Gran, and the idea of his father's fear.

It was not surprising to be told of his mother's worry, and his grandmother's. It seemed to him that worry and fear were perfectly fine emotions for women to hold and express. Encouraged, even, as part of the wide variety of emotions they were capable of containing without ill effect. Men, though. Any emotion that didn't lend itself to useful action, he figured, should logically be suppressed or denied. Or eradicated completely.

His father had feared nothing, when he was a child. So Arthur would have said. And maybe as a teenager, he might have supposed that concerns or doubts might have been discussed behind closed doors with Arthur's mother or Wilfred Aredian. A quick terse question, a best answer offered, an obvious solution reached within minutes. And now – now he thought abut the lines on his father's weathered face and the shadows in his dark eyes. The tension in his hands and the brusque manner…

If it was fear, was Arthur right in sensing that it had been worse, somehow, since the start of the season?

He thought about it in the evenings at dinner, when his father complained. Once, specifically, about an employee caught stealing from the barracks' kitchen – the need for punishment to be set, an example to be made. Arthur thought about fear as his father waxed rhetorical about why such things should never happen. Why it _had_ happened. Why it would never happen again.

Arthur personally thought there should be room to pardon infractions – stealing food? when there were other more valuable items? – that were perhaps based in an unusual need. He thought there should be room for that person to have brought the need as a request to their superiors – as far up as his father, if necessary.

Though he did understand, sometimes people were criminally greedy or opportunistic, and that couldn't be tolerated…

He thought about fear during the day, since he had plenty of time for idle thought in his position in Distribution. Fall was half over, which meant a majority of the lands to which they shipped the fertilizer would lie fallow til spring. Orders for winter crops in the deep south and a handful of tree farms planning one last seasons'-end application, were easily filled. Collected from Production in the old hospital, packaged in accordance with the needs of liquid or granule form, labeled and stored neatly for loading on the trucks.

And sometimes Arthur felt like the sphinx-guard at his grandmother's door for being seen and acknowledged, when conversation flowed in low ripples around him. He didn't join in, he didn't stop or censure them, and so after a few days or weeks, the comfort of the workplace that had been disturbed by the reassignment of the boss's son was restored.

Control, he thought, as he had nothing else to do beyond an undefined concept of _supervision_, primarily lay in the promotion of two motivations. Desire for reward, and fear of reprisal.

The people around him in Distribution were not that different from the people in any other department he'd worked in – barring Security, of course. Some did just enough to get by, to keep the ration card and not get booted from their position. Some took pride in doing their best work. Some sought advancement for the benefits, for personal and intellectual challenge, to support growing families. Some were content to put in their requisite hours, anticipating creature comforts at the end of the day or week – a special meal, a hot bath, a new love interest.

Both were necessary, he concluded. Reward for those who worked for that, punishment waiting for those not so inclined to self-motivate. But he couldn't see why his father should fear the little incidents of aberration.

He rather thought it impossible, human nature considered, to eliminate those completely from any enterprise – and theirs was a very large empire.

Like the machines at the motor-pool. The more complex it was, the more that could go wrong. They did preventative maintenance – Arthur had supervised that also, though he had not been encouraged to pick up a wrench himself – but it was ridiculous to expect each vehicle to run smoothly _all_ of the time. Things happened – always had, always would – the idea was to take it in stride, diagnose and fix. Recriminations and penalties, pressure to prevent such incidents, only served to introduce unproductive tension among the other working parts of the whole.

Arthur frowned down at the warehouse floor, the activity of the remaining workers around and among the high wide system of shelves desultory and slow and mostly, he thought, because he was watching. After the first of the year, he was supposed to be moving to Production. The most elite of departments. Best-paid workers, with their own quarters and facilities, amenities equal to their skills and services, much like those in Security.

His eye was caught by a young man in gray coveralls, brushing a push-broom across the painted concrete floor. Tall and thin and – his manner was odd, among his fellows.

Odd for maintenance crew, Arthur decided. The young man with an untidy crop of black hair did not act bored or tired or defiantly embarrassed to be performing the most menial of tasks on the fort. He was focused; he appeared quiet, working not slowly or impatiently, just with a methodical efficiency that allowed his thoughts free elsewhere.

It occurred to Arthur that the young man was familiar, for some reason. Beyond just having seen him sweeping before, subconsciously noting him amidst the scenery of the workplace.

So, because he was a bit bored, in this department at this season, and because the consideration of his father's fear made him uneasy, deep down, he replaced those thoughts with curiosity, and acted on it. Wandering to the end of the balcony that marked the second story for the higher rear warehouse, he made his way down the metal-grill stairs to reach the bottom, just as the young man swept the broom closer.

"Afternoon," Arthur greeted him easily, still trying to place where he'd seen him before – the gray uniform coverall wasn't helping his recognition.

But when the boy glanced up – mild surprise because he hadn't noticed anyone approaching him turned into a split second of pure terror that was so far beyond the reactions of reserve or caution Arthur usually received from his father's employees, it startled him.

It was the fear, though, that he recognized. It took him two weeks back, to the search-hangar at the front gate. Three of them – curly-haired Texan, plump spitfire of a girl, and this kid.

Who controlled his apprehension - at facing Arthur? he regretted being the cause of the reaction – and responded softly, "Afternoon."

"I see you found a job after all," Arthur offered.

A bit of awkwardly casual conversation seemed the only apology he could offer for unintentionally startling or intimidating the boy – but now he acted like he wasn't sure whether he should lean on his broom and chat, or keep working. The boy hummed affirmation, and ended up ineffectively brushing the same square of concrete, eyes down, but not moving away.

"How about your friends?" Arthur added. The Texan's name he'd heard – and remembered passing it on to Aredian - what, what was it… "Gwaine. He found a job, too? And…"

"Yes," the boy said hesitantly, with the inflection of a question or an uncertainty, and a swift upward glance.

"Listen," Arthur went on quickly, with a glance around to see that they were not being observed – not that anyone would question anything he chose to do, or fault the young janitor for indulging Arthur's whims, but he'd like to avoid curiosity and gossip. Probably this boy would, too, judging by his manner. "Have you got a name I can call you?"

A longer hesitation, and the same questioning uncertainty. "Merlin?"

"Hey Merlin, I'm Arthur." He put out his hand, claimed the boy's reluctant offering for a brief hearty shake, then released him.

"Yeah, I know who you–"

"I know you know who I am," Arthur interrupted him, mildly exasperated in spite of himself. "Everyone knows who I am. It's just – look, you don't have to be afraid of me. I'm not going to get you in trouble – not unless you do something to deserve that – and let me tell you, it'll probably have to be something serious for me to do that. All right?"

His assurance didn't seem to have helped. Merlin gave him another rapidly shy glance, his hunched shoulders and shuffling feet betraying his wish to be elsewhere.

Arthur was used to the ingratiating sort, who smiled and talked and connected and _assumed_ for all they were worth, betting on some return benefit down the road. He was used to the poor proud, a sort of reverse arrogance that insisted the interpersonal distance was the fault of _his_ conceit.

Merlin wasn't either. But Arthur wasn't getting anywhere, anyway; he gave up.

"Okay," he said inanely. "I'll just… let you get back to work, then."

The boy ducked his head, plied the broom with clumsy alacrity and a continuing awareness of Arthur's presence. Arthur sighed and went, not back to the supervisor's office from where he exercised temporary and granted authority, but out the back door.

The building's foundation had been built several feet into the ground, concrete barriers erected to hold the earth of the hills spilling around the sides from washing into the back lot – now ground mostly into gravel by constant use and the lack of major repairs. Which once they would have done – in his grandfather's time, maybe – but which were no longer possible. Or at least, cost-effective.

As the sun went down just beyond the far edge of the building, Arthur hopped up on the concrete barrier so its rays were not directly in his eyes. He kicked the heels of his boots and watched the workers leave, nodding quiet acceptance to the courtesy required by inadvertent eye contact.

"Goodnight, Mr. Pendragon." Sometimes it was, "Mr. Arthur."

To each other, it was nicknames and raised voices, friendly insults and plans for the weekend. _Inclusion_, and it never seemed so warm, or made him feel so cold.

He noticed when Merlin slipped out, with a bashful reserve that made the rest of the people accept and forget his presence without unfriendliness on either part. He out of all of them, didn't seem at all aware of Arthur sitting eight feet to the side of the solid metal back-door, and moved away toward the residential district a mile and a half to the northeast.

Arthur watched him out of sight, thinking he'd have to get a move on back home, too; the Harley's headlight had burned out two days ago and he hadn't yet made the trip to the motor-pool to have it fixed. Partly because he knew _they_ were busy, servicing vehicles and equipment after the harvest season, winterizing them – and partly because he _knew_ they'd pull their best mechanic from that work to give his Harley priority. And he didn't like throwing his weight around like that.

"Goodnight, Mr. Arthur." That was the shift manager, locking the door and pocketing the key. Rotund and balding and affably neutral at being invaded and infringed upon by the boss's son and the need to teach departmental ropes to someone who'd outranked him at birth.

"Have a good weekend, Irvin," Arthur returned, kicking his boot-heels as he watched the man roll on toward his own home.

Briefly he closed his eyes, listening to the human sounds die away, listening to the wind rise and fall, the occasional dead-leaf skitter over dry ground or gravel. The chill felt good, and clean; it pierced his lungs in a way that reminded him he was alive.

And alone, as he never was. Somehow to sit like this without another person in sight, was less lonely than being surrounded – by employees during work-hours, by other kids both envious and resentful at school, by the members of his own family at home, before he was allowed to retire to the oppressive solitude of his room.

Abruptly, his reverie was interrupted by a young female voice in exclamation of a mild curse. "Has everyone gone home already? Oh, I've _missed_ him, then!"

Arthur straightened, turning around in surprise, as the girl rounded the bottom of the side hill and retaining wall, approaching the rear of the Distribution building from the direction of Production, behind him. His surprise increased to recognize her for the darker-skinned companion of Merlin and Gwaine the Texan – and she was wearing the white smock of a lab worker. Not just fiery and outspoken, then, but intelligent and educated. Her curls had been tied back from her face in a knot that was end-of-the-day unraveling.

She recognized him, too, and her color heightened as she drew herself up briefly, then turned to leave. "Excuse me."

"You were looking for Merlin?" he guessed, easing himself down from the waist-high curb-wall.

She stiffened, and dark eyes sparked at him. "I beg your pardon?"

"Merlin," Arthur repeated. "That's what he said his name was. Tall shy kid with black hair."

"How do you know him?" she questioned narrowly.

He wondered at the reason for her tension, and lifted his eyebrows to communicate mild incredulity at the question. "He's working maintenance – assigned to Distribution…" deliberate pause. "Just like I am. I remembered you all from the gate, and stopped to chat with him a bit this afternoon."

"Why?" she said bluntly, crossing her arms over her chest with a nonverbal defensive defiance. He lifted his eyebrows – this was a new reaction – and she seemed to realize her behavior was unusual. "I just mean… well, he's quite shy, and… you're _you_, and… yes, obviously you can talk to whoever you like about whatever you like and it's perfectly fine and I've got to go. Excuse me."

"You were going to walk home with him?" Arthur said. She didn't turn quite all the way back around to give him a single nod, terse but not downright rude. He evaluated his Harley – it would be safe here for the night, key in his hip pocket – and dared, "Do you mind if I walk with you, instead?"

She did turn, at that, and watched him cross the distance between them, her expression uncertain, as if honesty warred with conventional respect. "Yes," she said finally. "I do. Kind of."

Interesting. She was one of the poor-proud, arrogantly judging him the egotistical one based on his name and familial privilege, which technically she owed her livelihood to, after all. And this from someone who'd cussed out gate-guards and earned a position among the intellectual elite of Leonard Wood, looking to return to the residential row in the company of a janitor.

"Fascinating," he said aloud. "I'll walk with you and you can tell me why you hate me and I'll do my best to prove you're wrong. How about that?"

It took her aback; the look on her face made him want to laugh. A whole city-full of pedantic hopefuls he usually avoided, and now twice in one day he'd been rebuffed by newcomers who wanted nothing to do with him.

"Why?" she said again.

"Because honesty is a rare and valuable thing, among the people of my acquaintance." It was the truth, but he spoke it with a mild sarcasm; because they didn't know each other, she probably wouldn't believe him anyway.

"Hm." Sharp comprehension, and combined with a keen flash of dark eyes, he felt a bit less comfortable. Honesty and understanding were good, but he didn't want pity or disdain, any more than she did. She began walking, but without deliberately turning her back, so he kept pace.

"So you and Merlin found jobs… What about Gwaine?" he asked. "He wanted into Security, didn't he?"

She hesitated long enough for him to suspect an initial inclination to a tart rejoinder to find out himself. He could, as his father's son. "They took him in the motor-pool," she said finally. "He's quite a good mechanic. I think. I don't know much about that sort of thing."

"Does he stay with you and Merlin?" Arthur asked. Another wary look; she was almost suspiciously private. Or just suspicious of _him_. "I have a problem with the lights on my Harley, maybe I could pay him to have a look in his time off."

"Sure," she said sardonically. "Whatever _you_ want."

A long time ago, he'd decided it was better by far to show amusement at this sort of thing, than umbrage. If she chose to be irritated by his attempts at friendliness when she expected arrogance, he was determined now to be as irritating as possible.

"What's your name, anyway?" he said.

_Long_ pause. "Gwen," she said only, not giving a second name.

"How do you like Production?" It was a good thing she wasn't taller or long-legged, he might've had a harder time keeping up. She grunted, still ill-tempered, and it was with diabolical cheer that he informed her, "Next year I'm going to be working there for the first time – we might be seeing quite a bit of each other."

"I hope not," she said sharply, reflexively – but as he laughed unoffended at her spite, she added thoughtfully, "For the first time? You mean you haven't been to Production, like, _ever_?"

"Never even stepped foot in the building, never had any reason to," he said, then goaded her, "You'll have to show me around."

"Honestly? If I'm still here at the turn of the year, I'll be seriously disappointed with myself."

"Why?" he asked, puzzled. Of course his opinion wasn't objective, but he'd thought a job in that department to be one of the best possible anywhere. He might have sought it himself, if he'd been inclined to science rather than history, and not destined, as his father's only child, to run the whole corporation one day.

"There's no research, no improvement!" she exclaimed. "There's no brainstorming or questioning or exploring. There's no–" Abruptly she stopped, talking and walking both, and narrowed her eyes at him. "Are you trying to get me in trouble? You know there's a confidentiality agreement I've signed, not to discuss my work on pain of lifelong solitary confinement in the brig, or something."

He shrugged. No big deal. "My father dissolved R-and-D years ago," he said. "Unnecessary. Why mess with perfection? We found something that works – we manufacture and sell it."

She stared at him, dissecting him heart and soul to her scrutiny. "And what about the innocent people hurt along the way?" she said finally.

"What do you mean, innocent people?" Her jaw jutted and her eyes narrowed, but she didn't respond. And pretty soon it was going to be too dark to see her expression anyway. "If you're talking about the radicals protesting my father's right to control his own company, assets and influences, of course we've got to use force to protect the company, prevent theft and sabotage and so on, that's only common sense."

A moment of silence, then she walked on. He followed, though if he didn't turn the opposite direction soon and pick up the pace, it was going to be a dark and slow walk when he did. He was going to get a lecture instead of dinner, and… didn't really care. The glow of the residential district was less than a hundred yards, now.

"You don't know," she said, almost like she was talking to herself. "I can't believe you don't know."

"Don't know what?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Can't say. I might get in trouble if you tell anyone I've said even this much."

For goodness' sake. Elitists and their secrets. "You're paranoid," he remarked. "You haven't told me anything except you can't tell me anything, and who do you imagine I'll mention such nonsense to?"

She hummed thoughtfully. "You're right. I'm a silly, paranoid girl… why are you following me?"

Arthur stopped and she kept going – but the sardonic glance she gave him over her shoulder wasn't unfriendly or unwelcoming. He watched her for a moment, striding down the street between the rows of the single-story residential buildings, sporadically lit by a few remaining streetlights, two rusty barrels with bellies alight, probably burning garbage.

Voices were free and sociable, children laughing. There was even music being played somewhere out of sight on a stringed instrument, maybe a guitar. No one worried about manners here, he thought, even as he knew it for a simplistic generalization, about rank and sophistication and perfection. When they were off work, they were _off_. Sometimes it felt to him like he never was – free time was never free, when his father was sure to ask how it was spent, and judge – and he wanted it.

Wanted to be part of this. Wondered if it was even possible.


	10. Arthur

**Chapter 10: Arthur**

Merlin looked up from his task of dinner preparations at Gwen's cheerful call of greeting. "Is that a chicken, Merlin?"

But his eyes were drawn almost immediately past her. He watched as Arthur Pendragon entered the residential district – alone, not leading three vengeful gate guards as he'd twice woken gasping from dreaming – and sauntered slowly down the center of the cracked and craterous street. Watching and smiling but not attempting to interact with anyone.

"Gwaine brought it," he answered Gwen, still watching past her. "Evidently this hen stopped laying…"

"Downsized, huh?" Though he assumed it was a joke by her expression, he didn't try to understand it.

Gwen was smart. She would've noticed Arthur Pendragon following her – why had he followed? – and therefore she'd allowed it. Why had she allowed it?

Today, of all days, after two weeks of watching and learning – not how to do chores he'd grown up helping Gaius with, but where things were kept and the expectations for schedule and behavior. Two weeks of overcoming nerves at being placed alongside Pendragon's son, and avoiding attention.

And to turn around to find Arthur five feet away, focused on him.

Arthur had the quiet watchfulness of a fox, or a wolf who wasn't hungry - unsettlingly observant. And now here he was.

"You're a mess," Gwen informed Merlin as she approached.

He didn't say, _third day_. She didn't need the reminder, and very quickly they'd all gotten used to holding their tongues in the constant company of the residential district.

"Just wait til dinner, it'll all be worth it," he told her mildly, shifting to ease his leg muscles in his crouch. "Gwaine's getting cleaned up inside – said he was up to his armpits in oil changes, today."

Gwen nodded and turned toward the camper that was parked alongside the building they'd moved into, along with a family of eight. Merlin was clearly almost done plucking the chicken for the pot; she didn't have to say anything like _don't be late_, or _we won't be long_. The camper rocked slightly as she set foot on the stair, shuddered a bit as she shut the door behind her.

Arthur, Merlin was aware, had moved to a point in the middle of the street just past them, surveying the various points of activity for the weekend night with his hands loose on his hips. Not ignored, by anyone, but not included, either.

Merlin risked a glance at the black-clad, fire-lit son of the man who'd chosen to be his enemy without ever meeting him – just as Arthur twisted to look over his shoulder at Merlin. He cringed as the older boy took that brief contact as invitation to stroll over, and hunched lower over his task.

His fingers, splattered red past the wrist and coated in fine down stuck to the drying blood, trembled in plucking the carcass of the headless hen. It was good thing he'd done this numerous times, living with Gaius, and he didn't plan to pick up the knife from its place on the bloody concrete block at his right knee to finish the internals of butchering, until Arthur was gone.

Or until Gwen had finished today's transfusion, and any nick he made in his own flesh with an unsteady knife would not stain himself and their dinner telltale green.

"I worked a year in the HQ kitchen, just out of school," Arthur offered, abrupt and inexplicable. "_That_ was one thing they never had me do."

Merlin squinted up at him - hands in his pockets, eyes on Merlin's hands, face expressionless. If he treated Arthur politely so he wouldn't get suspicious, he might not go away. But if he was rude or unintentionally offensive, he might earn just the sort of scrutiny he was trying to avoid.

"It goes faster if you know what you're doing," Merlin allowed neutrally, flipping the mostly-naked poultry to get at the underside of the left wing.

Small chuckle. "Well, you look like you know what you're doing."

Merlin focused very small – one inch of rubbery pink skin, then the next – and murmured something intended to be agreement or acknowledgement.

Arthur added, "You grew up in the country? On a farm?"

"Yeah." Breathless, Merlin dared to add, as an excuse for any unintentional offense, "In a cabin, on the ridge above town. The old man who took care of me was kind of a hermit."

"That explains a lot." There was something in the older boy's tone that was more relief than teasing – Merlin looked up questioningly, but Arthur missed his glance, in relaxing into a half-kneeling, half-sitting position. "Your friend Gwen – how long have you known her?"

Merlin shrugged, fingers busy. "A while."

"And Gwaine? He's around, isn't he?"

"I've known him a little while longer… they're in the camper."

Even focused on stripping the tiny down feathers that clung to the dead flesh, Merlin was aware that Arthur turned immediately as if he could see through the metal wall into the vehicle. "They're together, then."

Merlin didn't understand the hint of regret. "Um – for right now?"

Arthur turned fathomless deep-sea eyes on him. "No, I mean, they're together, like – they're in love?"

"Oh." Merlin considered. "No, I don't think so. They argue too much."

"Just friends, then?"

Were his two friends, friends with each other? He shrugged, uncomfortable at the question, and not knowing the answer.

Arthur fell silent, and Merlin took a moment to inhale, half-closing his eyes, feeling the life around him. And the death – this ground here that received no blessing, the flesh of the fowl killed to provide for him and his friends, the spirit that struggled in Arthur like green wood fed to a small fire, choked and hidden and confused with the smoke.

Then the door of the camper opened and the vehicle rocked under Gwaine's weight as he descended, unsurprised to see Merlin's unusual companion – but of course Gwen would have warned him.

"H'lo, Pendragon," Gwaine said cheerfully, shrugging into the secondhand deer-hide jacket he'd managed to procure for the cold season. "Slumming it tonight, are we?"

Arthur pushed to his feet, but didn't retreat. "As long as I am," he returned evenly, "you might as well use my first name."

"I'll think about it," Gwaine agreed breezily.

Merlin thought, _Freya was right. He smiles at everyone_. But he thought he knew the Texan well enough by now to know that Gwaine used that free-and-easy grin to cover what he truly thought and felt. That smile and unconcern, feigned or not, was not all there was to his new friend.

Gwaine added, down to Merlin, "You about done with that? Gwen wanted a word, in the camper."

Wanted a word. Meant, she was ready to give him his injection of Gwaine's blood. He wondered, if she didn't have that self-appointed responsibility, whether she would come back to their rooms in this building at all. Probably to check on her camper. Maybe to check that they weren't suspected, hadn't been caught, to bring suspicion on her before she could slip away from the fort.

"Yeah, it's about ready. You want to chop it for the stew?" He couldn't help a small smile at Gwaine's grimace – that was why he'd said it – and _that_ was why Gwaine had made the face.

"Oh, all right. S'pose we can't make the country boy do all the butchering, huh?" Gwaine reached down to grab Merlin by his forearm near the elbow, where it wasn't bloody, and hauled him to his feet. "You're a mess."

"Gwen said. And, I'd like to see you clean a chicken for the stewpot and not be covered in blood and feathers," Merlin retorted.

Gwaine rolled his eyes to Arthur, who was watching them with a curious expression of bemusement. Merlin turned to the camper and behind him heard Gwaine say to Arthur, "And don't even mention the idea that cooking is a woman's responsibility, when Gwen's around."

Merlin used the bucket of water he'd left by the corner of the camper, squatting to scrub the blood from his hands, bits of downy feather floating to the surface. The camper door creaked above him; Gwen held it open, waiting for him without speaking while Gwaine's voice rose and fell in cheerful but indistinct conversation.

"Hey, Merlin," she finally said - a greeting quieter and more personal than her earlier words - as he stepped past her and she allowed the door to swing shut. She'd taken off the white smock she wore in her job with Production, and the curls by the sides of her face were springing out from the knot of longer hair at her nape.

"Hard day?" he asked, sliding into a seat at the table, the bench that had been stripped of its ruined cushion after their entrance onto the post. The kerosene lamp burned high on the table, light glinting from the set of needles she used for their procedure.

"Hard week," she corrected wryly. She remained standing as he rolled his sleeve a few more times, to bare the inside of his elbow. "Oh, that doesn't look good."

He studied the bruising, yellow, green, brown-purple. "The other one's worse," he told her.

Silently she seated herself to dab the disinfectant onto a clean strip of rag and swab his arm before she slipped the needle in with a by-now familiar twinge. "Tell me if you taste petrol," she said as she pushed the dark-red liquid slowly from the capsule attached to the needle, into his vein. "Gwaine said you might."

Silence. Both of them watched Gwaine's blood disappear by centimeters.

"Any other ill effects you've noticed?" she asked, still with very little emotion. She freed the needle, holding another bit of bandage to the prick in his skin until it closed on its own.

He shook his head, his eyes on the tray of bean-plant cups at their elbows. Any day now the temperature would dip below freezing during the night, and the little plants – the two he'd befriended especially – would die in the cold snap. Not something he could prevent unless he sat up with them all night, every night, and of course the cold was a necessary part of the cycle for all living things. The temporary sleep of death. But it still sometimes made him melancholy that he had to allow it.

"Just the fatigue?" Gwen asked again, like she always did, and he nodded.

There was a question he usually asked, but tonight he didn't. Maybe because it was the end of the week and he was tired. Maybe it was because it was the second week, and he was discouraged.

"Merlin…" she said, and her tone startled him into looking into her eyes, glistening in the lamplight and the chill of unheated not-quite-indoor space. "I'm sorry. If they're there, no one talks about it. If anyone I work with knows about your people, they're not worried. But… these people in my department, they're not scientists, Merlin. Not like I was raised to be. They're… assembly line workers. They've got a formula, they follow it to a T, and no one asks. No one asks any questions at all, and isn't that what science is supposed to do?"

Blindly she took his hand, and he squeezed hers gently.

"I don't know," she said, pushing the fingers of her other hand into her hair, loosening the knot even more. "They're all so timid or stupid – I feel like if I push, someone will report me. And if I don't, I have no idea how long it may take to win any of them over, not to mention a majority that could make Camelot have to sit up and take notice, and _listen_. And after all that time I've spent waiting and sounding them out and developing friendships – they could easily say, you've been working us this whole time you don't care about us really so why should we listen to anything you say?"

Merlin was not sure how to reassure Gwen that the success or failure of their venture did not lie in her hands. Not her responsibility, nor her fault, either way. "All I've discovered is where they're _not_," he said lightly.

"And now _this_," she added, with a flourish, as if she hadn't really heard him. "Arthur Pendragon."

"He spoke to me this afternoon," Merlin said. "Nothing happened, he just – kind of introduced himself."

"I don't think he knows," Gwen said abruptly. "How the fertilizer is made. I wonder if that would matter to him. I wonder what he'd do if he found out. I wonder… why he's interested in _us_, all of a sudden."

"I think he's… looking. Like all of us are," he said. "Only, he doesn't know what for, yet."

She scoffed. "Rich daddy's only son. I imagine his life is so lacking."

Merlin shrugged. "You never know."

She shifted her eyes to him without moving her head. "What do you think he's looking for here, with us, then?"

The meaning of life. Purpose. Merlin ventured a simpler, "To make friends?"

Gwen leaned forward over the table, her elbow making a V as she pointed at him. "That's what Gwaine thinks. He thinks we should use that, like goodwill in the Pendragon bank, if things ever turn against us. Or like I was talking about the folks in Production, use that connection to persuade him to our way of thinking. Make an ally on the inside, and higher up." Merlin didn't answer immediately, and she went on without giving him much pause for chance. "I think that could easily backfire and we shouldn't risk it, we should keep our heads down where the Pendragons – and maybe especially Arthur – are concerned, and just focus on the mission. Keep him on his side of the line, even if he's too stupid or repressed to know there is a line." Another short moment of silence, and she prodded impatiently, "What do you think?"

Merlin shrugged uncomfortably. "I think… if someone needs something and you have it, why not give it? And if there are complications to deal with, after… deal with them after."

"Y'know sometimes," she said, and he could tell she was dissatisfied with him by her tone, "I can't tell whether you're naively foolish, or just wise in an unsophisticated way."

He tried a smile, to cheer and encourage her, and smooth things out between them. "Hungry?" he suggested.

She chuckled, and said, "Oh. Dinner. Yeah, I suppose I'm hungry, too. Come on, let's see how badly Gwaine's ruined our chicken in your absence."

…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

"If you're staying to eat with us, you might as well help."

Arthur didn't know quite what to make of the offhand invitation, but the Texan clearly needed the door of the building opened for him. And as he made his way down the hall, chicken in cook-pot in his hands, he'd glanced over his shoulder with an expectant grin and lift of dark eyebrows, so Arthur had followed him.

"John Smith, right?" he said. "He who doesn't work, doesn't eat?"

Gwaine didn't respond, but Arthur was too busy looking around to mind. There was an open room on the immediate left, front windows and half-walls, cabinet and shelves and it appeared to serve as the kitchen – pantry and storage, at least, if not cooking. On his right, there were two closed doors painted a thick chocolate brown with a stenciled symbol for indoor plumbing, segregated by gender. Just beyond, a hallway running the length of the building crossed their path. Arthur glanced down to see more doors – open, shut, in motion – and heard children's voices, an older female who was probably their mother raising hers for their attention.

And in the rear, again the largest room; he wasn't really surprised, supposing the whole fort had a single architect or a unified team of them, when it was designed and constructed. Concrete floor, unpainted but relieved in places by braided rag rugs. In the far right corner stood a massive metal table flanked by long connected benches; in the center, a generous fire-pit built of broken pieces of brick and stone and concrete held together with mud-and-clay mortar.

He admired the set-up; he would not have been able to build it. Wood-box separate so no stray spark might threaten waiting, drying fuel. A rack, a swiveling arm, even an iron door set into the high chimney-back for an oven.

Two small children, obviously siblings and maybe even twins, wrestled on the biggest rug, between the fire-pit and a couch. It was an industrial-style piece of furniture that could seat four grown men comfortably, with square cowhide-covered cushions, and angular metal arms and legs. Two men sat at the table in the corner, father and son maybe; they looked up as Gwaine entered.

The younger one – though still closer to fifty than forty – and dressed all in black as Arthur was, found his feet after a moment's astonished gape.

"I take it you recognize our company," Gwaine tossed off flippantly.

And then, in spite of the Texan's hint that Arthur would have to help with preparations if he wanted a share of dinner, he found himself seated to the middle-right of the great couch, and no more was said of appointed tasks.

_Inclusion_ was noisy, Arthur thought, and tried to subdue his grin for dignity's sake.

Apart from Gwaine, Gwen, and Merlin – just friends, he learned, none related to another – it was a single family group that inhabited the building. The oldest male, who walked with a limp and spoke with a slur – involuntary, since the muscles on the left side of his face were slack from some illness – had no employment other than taking care of the home. His son Marco, the black-clad and close-shaven, was contentedly stuck on the lowest tier of Security – tasked with patrolling and maintaining the perimeter fences and barbed wire of the fort.

Marco's wife was a dark-skinned Amazon with boyishly-short hair and a restive manner. She and the two oldest children worked the fields – one teen girl with an untamable mane of black hair who flirted aggressively with Gwaine and then Arthur for comparison's sake, though no one seemed to take her seriously, and her years-younger brother, sullenly too old for school and too young to go into Security with his father.

The three youngest children, Arthur never did reach the point of being able to tell apart. They were like puppies, all school-age, gender indeterminate around short but shaggy haircuts and nondescript earth-tone clothing, probably cheap originally and hand-me-down now. They frolicked around Merlin without seeming to disturb him, as he cleaned and cut and added vegetables to the chicken in the cook-pot. Carrots, celery, onions, that Arthur saw.

The fire was tended, the broth began to bubble, the aroma to spread. Arthur relaxed deliberately, sliding down the couch and tilting his head back to note the hole cut into the corrugated-metal ceiling for the smoke, itself sheltered from precipitation with a cupola-style roof.

Gwen ended up on the couch as well, resting against the back, one knee drawn up and turned a bit sideways, though she didn't speak to him.

None of them did, which he appreciated. It was enough to be accepted without resentment or false welcome. Merlin crouched on the other side of the fire-pit, watching the flames hypnotically; the family's mother braiding and sewing another rug, while she watched her brood for misbehavior.

Dinner was the same slap-dash affair that pre-meal socialization had been. Mismatched bowls that Merlin ladled stew into; the mother produced chunks of semi-stale bread from somewhere in the pantry. No one tucked napkins or asked him questions, and if the broth was thin and short on salt and the chicken tough, still there was plenty, and it was one of the best meals he'd ever eaten.

Then the two teens were dispatched to dish duty and the mother herded the youngest three to bed; Merlin disappeared, and Gwaine gossiped with Marco. Gwen lounged, and Arthur guessed no one minded if she helped or not. Hers was probably the highest pay-rate of the building's inhabitants; he assumed she contributed in other ways.

"You were very patient with Isa," Gwen said with lazy amusement. He noticed that somehow in the genial shifting confusion of the meal, they'd ended up at a close arms-reach. She didn't lift her head from the back of the couch, but her dark eyes glittered, at odds with her apparent languor. "That happens to you a lot, girls throwing themselves at you?"

Arthur felt his lips twitch sideways. "Not usually with their entire family watching," he answered with more humor than defensiveness. "What is she, sixteen?"

"Mm. And when you were sixteen?"

He twisted his head sideways on the back of the couch to grin at her. "I was about five feet tall and a hundred pounds."

She scoffed and slapped his shoulder with the backs of her knuckles.

"Seriously," he added. "It's hard to take those kinds of girls seriously when you go home and look at that in the mirror." Her look softened contemplatively, orange flame reflecting in her eyes, and he couldn't bear it – her sympathy or her intuition. He said lightly, "You?"

She snorted and warmed-pink cheeks rose as she smiled. "I was raised in a community of adult scholars," she told the fire. "Even if I hadn't been, at sixteen I was as wide as I was tall."

"Never," he protested immediately, and she turned to meet his eyes with a sparkle.

And something – everything – shifted, so subtly he wasn't afraid, just… alerted. Ready. He found he was looking at her mouth, kissed soft by the firelight.

There had been more than a few, like Isa. And he'd been warned by more than his own instinct. His father, in no uncertain terms when he was being disgustingly blunt – in Arthur's adolescent opinion – about the facts of life. The facts of girls. His father had said, _Make no promises, for I won't honor them_.

_Be careful_, his mother had said, _so many girls will pretend to love you, even give themselves to you, for material reasons._

_Love,_ Gran had said. _Is commitment. For worse and for poorer and in sickness_…

He couldn't help wondering if Gwen had just been smarter about getting his attention. Playing hard to get. He believed her initial reticence; he also believed her self-described teen portrait. Didn't mean she wasn't capable now of manipulating any vulnerability he showed, for her own purposes. He looked away deliberately, looked over to Gwaine - who had engaged in a test of strength with the near-fifty father-of-five - as the Texan turned and swung a leg over the bench to straddle it.

"Arthur, come on and give it a try," Gwaine invited, with a wide cheerful grin. He set his elbow and flexed his fingers. "I'll even let you win, I promise. If you can."

Arthur straightened up away from the back of the couch. "I really ought to get going," he confessed. Coming home late was one thing – staying out all night might very well prompt his father to send out the guards. A search party. He put his hands on his knees and pushed to his feet, turning to start toward the door.

At the selfsame moment that Gwen scooted from the couch, heading the other direction.

For the space of an indrawn breath – audible on her part - they were close enough to brush against each other's clothing. Her gaze rose from his chest – eye-level for her – and she blushed through a confusion that surely wasn't feigned, and echoed through his own heart and nerves and reactions, also. And he wasn't giving her a cynically-suave brush-off.

Instead, awkward as a sixteen-year-old now, himself, he tripped over his feet a bit in trying to back up, and blindly turned to Gwaine for help. "Oh, I forgot, I wanted to talk to you about my Harley."

Gwen murmured an excuse, and pivoted on the spot, retreating down the perpendicular hall to the bedrooms.

"Yeah, what's up?" Gwaine left the bench and met him at the juncture of halls, leaving the older pair of men, father and son, to sit in companionably ruminative silence, as the fire died down.

"Problem with the headlight," Arthur told him.

"Try replacing the bulb?" Gwaine suggested. His perfect cheer, Arthur felt, was as much a cover for his true opinions as the fawning or belligerence of anyone else. Less irritating, though, which he appreciated, it allowed him to feel more relaxed and behave more normally, himself.

"No, it's not that. It'll flicker and die, and then come back on… I thought maybe tomorrow you could have a look? I'd be willing to pay you…"

Gwaine shook his head, running his fingers through his shaggy hair, loosening it from its tie at the nape of his neck. "No, I can't. Not tomorrow."

"It's the weekend," Arthur reminded him mildly. "Day off."

"Market day, though..." Gwaine's grin was apologetic.

"Some other time?" Arthur shrugged. "I guess you'll see me at the market, then." His whole family went, sometimes; it was good PR.

"I'll bring Merlin." The grin was back.

"And Gwen?" They were at the front door, now – half glass, half wood-plank.

Gwaine shrugged. "Probably not. She's the high wage-earner, here, that lets her off chores like shopping…" He slapped Arthur's shoulder in farewell, and turned back inside.

The air outside was bracingly cool after Arthur's fireside seat, and it smelled of leaf mold and snow. He'd taken three steps, the door slamming latched behind him in a gust of wind, when he noticed Merlin - sitting in the center of the street, loosely hugging his knees, head tipped way back to watch the stars. Arthur scuffed over to him, deliberately making noise to alert him, if the boy hadn't noticed his presence.

"I'm leaving now, I'll see you later," he said. "Say, thanks for loaning me your friends for the night."

A wide grin more reminiscent of the Texan split Merlin's angular face in the faint white light. "It's a new feeling for me as well," he said, not taking his eyes from the heavens.

"What's that?" Arthur asked.

"Not being alone," Merlin said mildly, still not dropping his gaze to address Arthur directly. "You realize gradually that you were born different. You feel like no one really understands your peculiar responsibilities. You struggle to find the best way to answer your call, and worry about the mistakes you might make, probably will make, and what the consequences might be for the people you care about. And just when you think you've got it – you open your eyes and the world is wider than you ever thought possible."

Arthur thought, which one of them did the boy mean? But he was right. Eerily right, but Arthur could not allow that one moment to suffice for all the time necessary before he trusted. Too often people pretended commonality and understanding.

"Gwaine says he'll bring you along to the market tomorrow," he said only, hoping his pause of silence hadn't given away too much.

The boy's eyes glinted darkly with amusement. "We'll do our best to talk Gwen into coming, too."

For their sake, or her sake – or his?

Arthur thought, it would be comfortable to trust Merlin. To feel in his bones that the boy truly had his best at heart. Could he say that of anyone except Gran?

Could Merlin say it of him? And if not, why not?

"Good night," he said only, and walked away to enjoy half an hour of cold and dark and solitude, before facing his father's wrath and disappointment once again.

…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

The market was red brick, like most of the buildings on the fort. Actually, Merlin thought it looked incredibly like a very large barn with two entrances, at each side of the front end, main and back.

He was glad that it turned out his newer set of clothes was clean for the weekend, as he stuck – _tighter'n a tick on a hound_, as Gwaine advised – to his shaggy-haired friend. The market was packed with booths and tables and bins and barrels, but the Texan's social cheer opened a path for them easily. He left the bartering to his friend, far more glib than he, and followed Gwaine, the crate with their purchases clasped in his arms.

But as they neared the middle of the great open room, where the floor was cleared in a main intersection, Merlin's eyes fell on the opposite row, far to the right as they were all the way to the left. Even without the clear recognition of Arthur standing to one side of the most conspicuous group in the market, Merlin thought he would have identified Uther Pendragon easily.

He dominated his immediate vicinity. Even people trying to focus on their shopping – the wares and the sellers - betrayed awareness of his presence. Pendragon looked an unemotional block of a man there for appearances' sake, staring straight ahead and enduring, but his wife was beautiful. Vacant and perfect like a statue, dressed in a gray suit trimmed with red and pink, affecting interest in the oranges or garments of the tables they ambled past. Behind them, Arthur was dressed all in black like his father, but with a loose button at the throat and sleeves rolled halfway to his elbows against the warmth of the crowded room. Next to him, a small old lady with a purple scarf over curly gray hair and eyes that sparkled even at the distance. Even though she was in the rear of the small party, it seemed that she was setting the pace, leaning on Arthur's am.

And she was looking at Merlin. Not just, her eyes had been sweeping the crowd from lack of interest elsewhere, and happened to connect with him.

With sharp, deliberate interest.

Merlin watched her pull Arthur down by his elbow and whisper in his ear. Pendragon's son and heir turned his head to scan the rows – and found them. Arthur nodded to greet and acknowledge Merlin across the crowd, simultaneously leaning to speak so quietly to the old lady that neither of his parents, appeared to notice.

The old lady did not look away from Merlin, when Pendragon and his wife took a position in the clear center of the middle intersection of the market, for all the world like sellers of their own celebrity status, allowing the various workers of Camelot and the fort to look at them and speak to them. He wanted to bolt.

"Let's go, can we go?" Merlin chattered in Gwaine's ear when his friend turned back with a wilty stalk of celery. "We can go, can't we? Are we done?"

"Yeah," Gwaine returned, but instead of turning to go back the way they'd come, he headed for that main intersection that would take them past the Pendragon family.

Merlin felt a panicky urge to jump to the metal girders supporting the roof high above them hop from one to another like a squirrel through the trees, scurry out the back door and keep going til obvious physical freedom calmed his nerves a bit. Except for the immediate and negative attention that would gather…

"Can't say I'm surprised, honestly," the Texan went on, over his shoulder to Merlin as they inched forward, stopping to let more people out of their row ahead of them before inching forward again. "I s'pose the guy wants as much as he can get, but…"

Merlin ducked away down another aisle, the corner of the crate catching Gwaine's shoulder-blade and alerting him to Merlin's escape.

He didn't bother making sure Gwaine was behind him, but it reassured him to hear the Texan exclaim under his breath from just behind him, "Wait up – it wasn't _that_ bad…"

The aisle he'd chosen might have been the busiest in the whole market. And he seemed to be going the wrong way. Panic tightened his lungs, threatening to stifle him before he reached the end, and the back door propped open with a rock.

Chill air, bright sunshine, open land and knots of people from the crowd milling, coming, leaving. Merlin gulped deep cold breaths, squinting against the rays of the sun distilling into ticklish tears in his eyes. Gwaine took the crate from him and he almost tipped dizzily backward from the vanishing weight.

"Merlin, hey." Arthur Pendragon, in unexpected proximity, startling Merlin almost as much as the presence of the sharp-eyed, purple-scarved old lady at his elbow. "We were hoping to run into you two. Hey, Gwaine."

Gwaine edged Merlin out of the way of the door, sheltering them with the illusion of privacy against the sun-warmed brick wall behind it.

"This is my gran, Mrs. Pendragon," Arthur went on, betraying a slight embarrassment – not for either party he was introducing, but his position between them. "She wanted to meet you."

Not _you_, referring to both of them, as new friends of her grandson. She didn't so much as glance at Gwaine, as Arthur gave her their names, a bit of their shared history. Her dark eyes were sharp on him and she wore an odd smile.

"Merlin," she said. "Of course, I had forgotten. I knew your father. You look just like him."

He knew nothing of the reactions of either young man beside them, beyond silence. Warily stunned, mildly interested – his breathing quickened, his palms were damp. He couldn't retreat, the market door ajar to the other direction was behind him. They hemmed him in, she snared him with her knowledge - his stomach fluttered with the uncertainty of what she might do with that. And what would happen next.

What happened was Gwaine. Babbling cheerfully and innocently as any brook, "Whaddya know? How about that for coincidence? Say, Arthur, spare me a minute, I have an idea for your Harley, and we can let Merlin and your gran catch up a bit."

Propping the crate on his hip, keeping it in place with one draping arm, Gwaine's other arm separated him briefly from the old woman. Arthur, fit and tanned under spiky blonde hair and blue eyes hesitant – for her sake, or Merlin's? – followed Gwaine's fingers latched onto his sleeve but slowly.

"Heavens, but you raised up skittish," the old lady observed, now alone with Merlin. "Like a wild thing. Where did your mama take you?"

"South," Merlin said only. Her flanks were cleared now, air and bright sunshine to either side and she could never hold him if he bolted past, but… "How did you know my father?"

"That's been… how long now." She sighed and shook her head, sketching the dimensions of his body in the air without touching him. "Fifteen years? Fifteen years ago I still worked in Production. Indirectly… how much did your mother tell you?"

"Not much."

"Yet here you are." Her eyes were sharp and he couldn't forget her last name. "Why?"

Forget the holler and the threat of agents and exposure. "I came to find out what happened to him," Merlin said.

Something shifted, inverted, and instead of her peering keenly into his soul, now he could see into hers, and the sorrow staggered him. Whatever he betrayed in his expression, she twisted away from him – stiffly, as old people do.

"That's my son in there, Uther," she said, but instead of stepping next to her to follow her line of sight, through the open door, into the market, Merlin flattened himself against the wall of the chapel. She didn't seem to notice. "My husband was a brilliant man," she added. "Uther is too, in his way. You know the story of the green-knights, the formula that was developed?"

She glanced at him for confirmation; he thought but couldn't say, _With their blood. With our blood._

"Your father was one of our volunteers, initially," she went on. "He looked – so much like you do. But though we found the formula that would produce the same effect as the blessing of the green-knights upon the land, we could not formulate a replacement for the one component that must be harvested from the blessed person. We thought, with _time_…"

She sidled to him, reached down to coax his hand into hers, drew it up into her grasp, soft and wrinkled. Brushed his cuff back to trace the veins inside his wrist. The few bruises and tiny scab-marks left by Gwen's needles with Gwaine's blood that hid his own and saved his life.

"I don't blame your father for sending you away." She hugged his arm as if she momentarily imagined him the surrogate for the man she'd known. "I would have done the same to protect Uther, or Arthur. And in any case," she sighed… "by then, Uther would not free any of his green-knights, anyway. Not to accuse him, or oppose him. It could be argued, he cared for them very well – food and comfort and safety and… serenity…"

"What about me?" Merlin asked. He couldn't see the current Pendragon in power from where he was standing, but Gwaine and Arthur were throwing more glances their way, clearly waiting.

"What about you? No, of course I won't tell anyone who you are. But you must ask yourself, what you want. Did you come to join your father? To free him – free them all? Perhaps it sounds noble – perhaps it _is_ noble – but what of the risk? What of the three million, Merlin, and the need for fertilizer to grow food?"

Merlin didn't know the answers to her questions, and maybe it wasn't up to him to answer all those questions, anyway. Maybe that was Gwen's calling. "Is my father still alive?"

"I don't know."

Again he plunged into those dark depths of sorrow looking back at him. It was a feeling that made him want to gasp, unexpected and sudden. Like breaking through the boarded cover of an old well. Falling, not knowing how deep, how cold…

"They used to house the green-knights on the top floor of Production," she added. "I have no reason to think that's been changed… They house me, now, on the top floor of HQ. Our circumstances are somewhat similar, I've sometimes thought… Merlin," she said with urgent clarity, "I'm quite sure Arthur does not know. Exactly what the formula includes, nor how it is procured. Of course he will have to discover this, sometime, and _choose_, but – tread gently with him? He is blameless in all this, yet…"

"Gran!" Arthur called, stopping at a near distance and betraying a polite sort of impatience, as well as awareness of those waiting. "Sorry… Gran, Father will be wondering where we are..."

Surprisingly, the old woman pulled Merlin down to kiss his cheek, a plump, feathery-dry kiss. "Take care, now, you hear?"

"Yes, ma'am," he said, astonished. He didn't meet Gwaine's eyes immediately, only nodded at Arthur's salutation.

"See you tomorrow."

"Well?" Gwaine demanded in a low voice, as they watched Arthur provide the arm of support for his grandmother to hobble back into the market building. "What was that all about?"

Merlin shook his head. "I need to talk to you," he said. "And Gwen…"


	11. The Fifth Floor

**Chapter 11: The Fifth Floor**

"Does Merlin's father still work here?" Arthur asked curiously, helping Gran across the graveled yard to their Humvee, used only for weekend market visits, anymore. An hour after his two new friends had departed, he couldn't stop thinking about coincidence and secrets.

Merlin had told him, _the old man who raised me_. Gwaine was wide open about his big Texas family, but Merlin was so quiet and private, on such short acquaintance, Arthur couldn't ask questions so personal. Though he would like an idea, what _not_ to ask – the little he knew spoke of an unconventional home life, for some reason. Or other.

"I don't know," Gran said vaguely.

"Didn't _he_ know?"

"Come along, Mother!" Arthur's father called impatient, standing hands on hips at the side door of the vehicle. Their driver was in the front seat already, Arthur's mother arranged modestly on the second seat, checking her appearance in a purse-mirror.

"Did I ever tell you about the first time your grandfather and I rode a train?" Gran said suddenly, almost girlish in her enthusiasm over the random memory.

The tale was long and wandering and included some sort of dinner-play beforehand, a stuck window during the journey, and a need for shampoo afterward. His parents, Arthur thought, tuned her out, watching out opposite windows and walking ahead of them once they reached their home in the HQ building. Gran was latched to Arthur's arm, though, as a sympathetic listener. And maybe he couldn't have coherently recounted her story to someone else, by the time they arrived in their quarters, but if she was happy reliving happier times, he was content to provide her audience.

Dinner hadn't arrived yet, on the covered trays sent up from HQ kitchen; Arthur's parents disappeared into their suite and he allowed Gran to draw him into her room without resistance. The driver who'd followed them inside took up his silent and unacknowledged post as the door closed between them.

And Gran's story was abruptly over. She made her stiff, slow way across her thick-carpeted room to her north-facing wall of windows, steadying herself with a hand on the back of her armchair.

"Gran?" Arthur said, concerned at the sudden silence, the sentence and story both left hanging unfinished.

"Do you have any regrets, Arthur?" she asked, in a completely different voice. Quiet, and clear. "Any mistakes yet that you know will haunt your life until you're as old as I am?"

Every week – sometimes more often – his father had a new disappointment to chastise him for. "Not really," Arthur said. "I mean, I know my father wishes I was more like him, but…" She turned, and he was surprised and shocked to see tears wetting her plump, wrinkled cheeks. He went to her, bending to hug her, and she held him tightly. "Gran, what–"

"Do not ever be anyone else," she told him. "You follow your heart, not someone else's. If there are mistakes to be made, make your own, don't repeat another's. You hear me?"

"Yes, ma'am," he said. Slightly confused, but then he often was, when Gran had her moments of serious conversation.

"Sally Bigelow," she said, drawing back to take his face in her hands. "Bent over backwards to convince me, I made a mistake to marry Constantine Pendragon. Jealous minx." She released him, and sank back into the chair by still, wincing degrees. "I just mean, don't let anyone talk you into a decision, or an action, you'll regret next week or next year or next decade."

"Honestly, Gran," Arthur said with a smile, "aside from you, Father is the only person who ever even tries to tell me what to do." Even the departmental supervisors had seemed wary of trying to exert influence, rather than sticking to teaching him the fundamentals – he wondered briefly if they'd been warned or cautioned against that without his knowledge.

"Exactly," she said. "Your father is your father, and you are you. You should no more try to be him, than he should try to be you."

"Imagine him on the Harley," Arthur said, and she rocked forward to slap the side of his knee as if punishing him for flippancy when she was trying to be serious.

"Every boy tries to be his father," she said. "As much like him as possible. Whether he knows it, whether he means it or not. And often, a young man is faced with a very clear decision. To continue in his father's footsteps, or step out on his own path. And Arthur… I have a feeling your choice might be very close." She rocked, hands folded sedately in her lap, evidently more comfortable after her pronouncement than he was.

"What do you mean?" he said. "What choice?" She gazed vaguely over his shoulder, and didn't answer, and rocked. "Come on, Gran. To say that, you must have something specific in mind, where you think I'd choose differently than my father. What is it?"

And why did he suddenly think of Gwen's words, _You don't know – I can't believe you don't know…_

"For instance," Gran said, still unfocused. "Your new friends. Do you suppose your father would approve of them?"

Arthur sighed. Probably his father would have no time for someone like Merlin, no matter what better characteristics lay underneath the shy awkwardness. And probably he wouldn't look past Gwaine's nationality, and whatever advantage that friendship might bring, politically and commercially. "Probably not," he admitted.

"That's what I mean," she said composedly. "Don't let anyone tell you, who should be a friend, or not, who trusted and who doubted, and for what reasons. Trust yourself, first of all."

Knock on the door. The guard said, predictably, "Dinner, Mr. Arthur. Ma'am."

"We're coming," Gran said. "Arthur, your arm? Oh, these bones are old – did I ever tell you about the first time your grandfather took me to ride the train? And Sally Bigelow said I shouldn't marry him…"

Arthur pondered why it was that Gran's moments of clarity seemed to come only when they were alone. Then again, she seemed to have carried quite the conversation with Merlin, too – and Arthur could not remember the last time he'd known of his gran speaking to anyone outside his family. The guards, the maid, maybe?

…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

He waited for Merlin, the next day. Sat in his borrowed chair in the supervisor's office, leaned back and watching through the window, down to the warehouse. He'd been there long enough to recognize the Distribution employees, and guess at their differing tasks, but it was really just a whimsical pastime. Unless there was a problem or an issue out of the ordinary that Irvin thought he should learn about, his presence there wasn't strictly necessary.

Then the opposite door opened to admit Merlin in his gray uniform coverall and his janitor's cart. The boy's blue-on-blue eyes widened as he realized the office was not deserted as usual. "Sorry," he mumbled, with the rising inflection of a question. "I came to clean… I didn't know…"

"Come on in," Arthur invited him, leaning forward in the chair. "Don't mind me, it's all right. I wanted to talk to you."

The cart bumped awkwardly as the door tried to close, clattering brushes, buckets and baskets, and Merlin flushed self-consciously, avoiding Arthur's gaze to focus on his work. Why was it that he could be serene as a star in the cool sky, talking to Arthur about loneliness and responsibility, and now so flustered?

"Just because I'm technically everybody's boss except my father," Arthur said, attempting humor, "or I will be, one day, doesn't mean the two of us can't be friends."

Merlin paused to consider, leaning on the handle of the broom from his cart. "Just because we're friends," he said mildly, "doesn't mean you should treat me differently from the rest of your workers."

"Fair enough," Arthur allowed. He was glad to note that the tall boy seemed calmer, jamming the straws of the broom into the corners of the office to sweep dust today, than he had when Arthur first spoke to him on the warehouse floor, two days ago. "So your father works here, too? Is that why you came looking for a job?"

Merlin tripped over the broom bristles, caught himself on the edge of the desk, and knocked a stack of ledgers to the floor. He dropped the broom handle with a bang of wood on concrete in trying to retrieve the books – dropped one of the recovered books in trying to reclaim the broom handle.

"Wait a sec," Arthur instructed, amused in spite of himself. "You get the broom, I'll get these." Merlin silently retreated, scrambling clumsily to his feet as Arthur knelt to gather the ledgers. He returned to his seat to begin glancing through to reorganize them, for something to do to put his new acquaintance back at ease, not because there was any pressing need for it. "So about your father? It's all right for you to tell me, you don't want to tell me, you know."

Eyes on the pages, the dates and filing numbers in the corners, to avoid witnessing Merlin's reaction. But hoping…

"I don't know," Merlin said. "I don't know much about my dad. I don't remember him… I guess my mama left when I was young?" Arthur lifted his head, and Merlin's face came alive to reassure him, "Oh, I'm sure she had good reasons, and it wasn't because… he wasn't a good person."

"So you know he used to work here, but not if he still does?" Arthur said, restacking the books in order in a desultory way. "Why don't you just ask at HQ? I'm sure Aredian's got employee records he could check for you."

"No, um…" Merlin twisted the broom handle in his fingers. "I don't even… know his name? Only that… only that he worked in… in… Production?"

"Oh, those folks," Arthur said. They kept pretty separate; he didn't suppose Merlin would be allowed to visit the facility, wander through and ask questions, hoping to get lucky. "Didn't my gran know his name? She remembered you…"

Merlin put the broom back on the cart's rack, retrieved brush and pan to crouch over his little dust-pile. "I guess I look like him… she didn't say his name. I… I forgot to ask."

Arthur took a deep breath. _Don't let anyone tell you, who should be a friend, or not, who trusted and who doubted, and for what reasons. _"Maybe you could come up sometime and talk to her. I had dinner with your family, maybe you could–"

The boy's head came up and he almost, Arthur thought, fell over again. Shock, pure and stark, paled his face and darkened his eyes, shock very close to panic. "N-no, I c-couldn't," he stuttered. "Please, I – couldn't."

"All right, don't worry about it." Arthur was disappointed, but hoped he kept it from showing. The two types he was used to – one would have jumped at the chance, hinted for a standing invitation – the other would take offense and refuse on principle. Merlin seemed to be… overwhelmingly intimidated at the thought of Arthur's father. Which he regretted as unfair – but to hold that against the boy would also be unfair.

"Gwen promised to try to find out, whatever she could," Merlin offered shyly, dumping dust and pan and brush into his tin waste-basket.

"Nothing yet, huh?" An idea struck, and he spoke without stopping to analyze. "I could probably have you transferred to the maintenance crew over there."

Merlin paused, dusting rag spread on the corner of the desk, leaning on his hand to study Arthur, with a wary sort of hope drawing his brows together. "I shouldn't ask you to do that."

"You didn't," Arthur corrected him with a smile, leaning back in the chair. "I offered."

"No, I… don't want you to do that." Merlin rubbed at the same spot, frown deepening as his gaze dropped to the desktop.

"Why not?" Arthur coaxed, liking the tall country boy a little better for his spot of pride.

"Because… because…" Merlin fidgeted, clearly torn over whether or not to tell Arthur his reasons. "I'm not just… trying to find him," he concluded in a low, halting voice, like he was telling Arthur a secret he thought would make him mad. "I… I want him to… quit working here. Leave, with me, and go… I don't know. Home, maybe, or…"

"Okay…" There must be something he was missing. Maybe a motive to be embarrassed of, but not fearful of telling; Arthur rather appreciated the honesty. "I don't know why that might be a problem?"

"Because… your father… the company… might not want to let him go? They'd want to keep him… working here… I'm pretty sure."

Arthur smiled. "Important, is he?"

Merlin nodded soberly. "Maybe… at least he _was_…"

"Okay," Arthur said, deciding. Because he really didn't have anything better to do around here, and it felt more noble than keeping someone who might be becoming a friend hanging around here for his own sake. "You report to Production maintenance in the morning, and I'll clear it for you and if anyone asks, it was my choice and I made you do it, all right?"

Merlin looked at once excited and fearful. "I guess I can't stop you."

Arthur laughed outright. "No. But you can pay me back, telling Gwen I said hello."

The knowing smile on the boy's face sent a hope of his own flooding into Arthur's heart. "I will. And… thanks, Arthur."

…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

Merlin's partner on the maintenance crew for Production was a plump, pallid young man named Jeeter. He was impatient with Merlin and ingratiating with their supervisor and clever in a way that alienated the other members of the cleaning crew. He seemed to welcome his chance to move his position up, even if only by comparison to Merlin.

It didn't take them very long to find a workable pattern, though. Jeeter bossed and lazed and Merlin serenely did what he could without worrying about the other's fussing. Without responding much, actually, which resulted in Jeeter's conclusion that Merlin was lacking in some mental capacity – which in turn meant he lowered his expectations, for conversation or for work. Still, enough got done that their supervisor didn't complain.

Merlin waited a few days, before initiating conversation, himself. Jeeter's low opinion didn't bother him; rather, it might come in handy if the person closest and most familiar to him in the building considered him incapable of ulterior motives or subterfuge of any kind.

"So the first floor is… kitchen. And storage, and transportation," Merlin said slowly one day, passing his mop over the scarred concrete floor of the cleaning crew's basement quarters, while Jeeter sat unoccupied on the stairway at one end of the great room, the best-lit place in the dim room, flapping a dust-cloth uselessly. "The second is living quarters for the lab workers. And the third and fourth floors are all the – labs? All the chemicals and stuff, where they mix the fertilizer?"

"It's got to go in small batches, for some reason," Jeeter yawned, shrugging. "They can't do enormous vats of the stuff. Don't ask me."

If it was important, Merlin decided he could ask Gwen about quantities, later. "But what's up on five?"

Jeeter raised his head with a flat smile, eyes glittering blackly. "Secret," he said.

"Have you ever been up there?" Merlin asked.

"Yep." The other man leaned back on his elbows. "Aren't you done with that yet? I swear, you're the slowest slob I've ever seen. Maybe tomorrow I'll have them send you upstairs to that fifth floor – then you'll appreciate having the basement to clean."

"What's so bad about up there?" Merlin said, feeling his pulse pick up.

He hadn't yet figured how he might accidentally blunder his way to the top floor, as the stairwell doors were all clearly marked, and no one thought he was so stupid as to be incapable of recognizing numbers from one to five. Or how he might request the floor – and be granted the request – without arousing suspicion. At least no one had asked about Arthur's involvement in his transfer to the building.

"Too bright," Jeeter said, with a sickly superior sneer. "Too many – people."

Merlin suppressed a shudder – and the thought that Jeeter knew exactly what was going on.

Two days later, he got his chance.

"Merlin!" Gwen's voice arrested him, and the sheet in his hands as he stood folding laundered bedding at a far table beside a bank of ancient and leaky machines – that still fascinated him, after always doing the washing by hand in Gaius's cabin.

He squinted back toward the bottom of the stair, where her figure was silhouetted against the light that didn't quite penetrate the gloom, clearly trying to locate him. He was inordinately glad to see her; one of the restrictions of his new position kept him housed here in the Production building and he hadn't been back to see her or Gwaine or the big family they roomed with.

Before he could speak, Jeeter sauntered into the arc of light from one side. Merlin was surprised the other man wasn't stretching and yawning – but he'd learned that the appearance of industry was important to his maintenance partner. At least where everyone else was concerned. He couldn't hear what Jeeter said to Gwen, but she was visibly impatient and annoyed – Merlin hoped it was only with the other young man's arrogant interruption.

"Gwen," he called. After laying the sheet carefully on the table so the edges wouldn't drag and get dirty again on the floor, he trotted across the open floor to join her.

"Oh, there you are," she said with relief – then quite frostily to Jeeter, "Excuse us, please."

Jeeter canted away again in clear dissatisfaction, but couldn't resist saying to Merlin, as though he were a supervisor, himself, "You can have a minute, but just a minute, and then get back to work."

Merlin ignored him. Gwen said, with sympathetic worry, "How are you doing? Are you okay?"

"Yeah." It was easy to find a smile for her. "I miss the sun and fresh air a bit, but – it's not really the season for sun, and the pine scent of cleaner is fresh."

Her round face beamed with a sudden smile that he was able to make the little joke. "Gwaine's not happy this crew keeps you here til the weekend. I told him I'd hear about it if something happened and you weren't okay, but…"

"But you didn't come down here just to set Gwaine's mind at ease," he guessed, and she shook her head.

"Geris and Lea – friends of mine, they were at the wind-farm, remember? – arrived last night. Lea said security came out to investigate, so they had to leave that site– " His alarm must have showed, for she hurried to reassure him, "Nothing happened. But Lea said, they think they've got the blood component synthesized, it only needs to be tested in better laboratory conditions than what the group can manage, to be sure. She and Geris want to try for jobs here, but… I don't know, Merlin, from what I've seen of the routines and protocols upstairs, we won't be allowed to run our own tests, unless we do something drastic like breaking in at night, or taking over the lab by force."

Merlin frowned. She hadn't spoken loudly enough to be overheard, and he knew he was naïve and inexperienced compared to her, but he didn't like the sound of that. It made him think of Freya's father, using violence and breaking the law in order to be heard. Right or wrong, look what had happened to him.

"That will be dangerous," he said. "And what makes you think that will convince the Pendragons to listen? Really listen?"

"I think Arthur would," she said, setting her jaw stubbornly.

"It might be better to talk to him first," Merlin suggested. "Maybe he can help you get permission. His gran said he didn't know, that he was innocent in all this…"

"And maybe his dad would lock him in his bedroom if he hears one word of it," Gwen returned sarcastically.

Merlin didn't answer. He'd seen the way his friend had sneaked glances at Arthur, that evening they'd shared the couch – albeit with plenty space between. She was interested in spite of herself – trying to figure him out. As a person, as the son of the man who represented the corruption Pendragon company had come to be.

"Any luck getting upstairs?" she said after a moment.

Merlin shook his head. "Jeeter says I've got to work my way up." Though he wasn't sure if that meant _literally_.

"They do send cleaning crew to the top floor." She leaned closer. "And, I have learned, they also deliver food, as well as to the lab workers on two. So."

"Be careful," he said, before he even knew he intended to speak. "Don't do anything… you might regret."

"Funny," she said, giving him a bright smile and angling her body to climb the stairs again. "I was going to say the same thing to you."

And Gwaine would say, _Careful was a horse that never won a race_ – except he was miles from here, working in comparative safety.

At lunch, which the cleaning crews all ate together in a cafeteria just off the kitchen, second shift after the more important lab workers, he and Jeeter were approached by the supervisor – Ackerman, a rotund man with weak hair and weak eyes, constantly squinted from the clipboard he saw very well, to the world around him, which he didn't. Freeing one hand from his ever-present schedule, he curled a finger to beckon Jeeter away from the table. Just, not far enough for Merlin not to overhear.

"Need you on Five this afternoon," Ackerman said. "Jack spiked a temp on that cold he's been fighting, and you know we're short-handed since the incident."

"Do I have to," Jeeter whined, slouching in protest. "I'm with Merlin, you know that, and Five's a special assignment, he can't go up there." Merlin's heart began to pound, but he focused on congealing meat and soft cooling vegetables.

"Arthur Pendragon vouched for him personally," the supervisor said. "And if he's a bit simple in the head, as you've been complaining, then he probably won't even realize what he's seeing. It probably won't even occur to him to tell anyone anything – and you, can make sure he's adequately reminded."

Jeeter groused and flounced about, but the supervisor ignored him, and Merlin followed his sour, "Come on, then," silently.

Fifth floor. And without plots or plans, no lying or tricking. Maybe it was about time they got lucky... and maybe it was something more. Was the anticipation positive, or negative? Would he find his father, or not? And in what condition? – he remembered nothing of the hours he'd spent drugged by snagger in Noble Corner, only of the dizziness and nausea waking up.

And what then?

Gwaine's offer of rescuing one man and high-tailing it for the border? Gwen's idea of barricading the lab – themselves inside to prove their claims of fertilizer production without green blood, the rest of the fort and the company out, to prevent further production? Or involve Arthur and open his eyes to the burden of responsibility – and hope his reaction was favorable?

...*….. …..*….. …..*…..

Jeeter knocked at the ash-gray metal door at the top of the stair while Merlin waited with the cleaning cart clasped uncomfortably in his arms, the lower rim making bruises on his shins. It clicked open, and Jeeter heaved at the heavy door.

Inside, it looked not unlike Gwen's camper. Ten feet wide maybe, and twice as long, it was narrowed by parallel counters – to the darker, higher right, refrigeration units and a large sink, racks of waiting glassware, a shaded electric lamp in the far corner. To the left, a lower desk interrupted by cabinet drawers underneath, papers and binders littering the surface, well-lit by a bank of windows running the length of the room.

An older woman, with gray hair pulled severely behind her head in a clip and dressed in strict white, pushed a wheeled chair back and sideways out of their way; behind her, a younger woman in similar dress with long, limp brown hair concentrated diligently on her work.

"Jeeter," the older woman said, stern and unwelcoming, but acknowledging the need for their presence. Merlin immediately discounted the idea of confiding even minimal truth or asking for assistance. "Who's your friend."

"This is Merlin, he's new, but Ackerman cleared him on recommendation from Arthur Pendragon," Jeeter explained. "Merlin, this is Ms. Tucker, and Carol-anne." The younger woman still didn't look up.

"Make sure he knows the rules," Ms. Tucker added sternly.

Jeeter waved a careless acknowledgement, and Merlin ducked his head in a nod. He was quite clear on the topic of absolute secrecy and the consequences of disobedience, and it made him feel a queasy sort of guilt to know that he had no intention of keeping it.

"Don't set that down," Jeeter added to him, "we'll go through and clean the big room first."

Merlin obediently took his first step to follow Jeeter to another door at the far end of the small office – then looked through the windows properly for the first time. It wasn't an outdoor space at all, as he'd assumed from the light. Just, yards and yards of windowless white-painted walls, that actually dropped down another story to green carpeting. And people.

A dozen, maybe, at first glance, in bleached cotton trousers and loose smocks. Adult, his mind perceived, though definitions of gender caught on attitude and movement.

They wandered. Slow and aimless and alone, each one. Like a roomful of sleepwalkers.

He walked the same, the length of the office, the cart still carried in his arms, rather than set down to roll. Whether the women watched him pass or busied themselves with their tasks, he didn't know. Jeeter held the door open, and the sudden light, brilliant by comparison to the shuttered observation room, blinded him for a moment.

It was very quiet. Soft shuffling sounds. No voices.

The metallic clang and clatter of his boots on the stairs, the cart colliding with the safety rail, seemed almost obscene – yet only one or two looked up, with only vague interest.

Jeeter jogged unconcernedly down the stairs behind Merlin, beginning to give directions. "You can start… at that end… with the…"

Merlin heard him only indistinctly, as though he had water in his ears, and gave him no attention whatsoever. There were more than he'd initially seen. Just under the office windows, hidden by the angle, a wall of shelves for books and – toys. Dolls and blocks and half-a-dozen more people handled the objects in a listless haze, some standing, some slouched on chairs or the carpet.

He turned his head – past Jeeter who stood scowling, speaking _aren't you paying attention to me what is wrong with_ – to see two rows of tiny rooms facing each other at the far end of the great room. Some doorways covered by a curtain, some visible past the light cloth barrier pushed aside. Bunk-beds, arranged to make practical, if uncomfortable, use of the space. Two more solid doors, with the same indoor-plumbing symbols painted on them, as at the housing compound.

A few more people, here, too. Lying unmoving on their beds, and not all of them had their eyes closed. Tall metal poles like hat-racks were bolted to the floor beside each bed… and no one was wearing anything on their heads.

There was a two-foot square grate set at the bottom of the wall – its twin at the other end of the area, under the observational windows – and a fine sweet stench curled to his nostrils on the air currents. Residue.

Jeeter gave up trying to communicate with Merlin, and yanked the cart from his arms.

Briefly Merlin worried that the snagger was still in the air somehow, and only affected green-knights, but he could still hear and understand Jeeter's profane complaints, he could make his body move and function. He was here for his father.

One glance up told him that the office was dark for a reason – nothing could be seen behind the glass, from here. Perhaps the women watched him even now. He wondered if it might not be the clever thing to do, to busy himself with the janitorial work, and study his surroundings more unobtrusively.

But his feet took him to the shelves under the window first, rather than anywhere near cleaning supplies or tasks. No one took particular notice of him, blank gazes sliding right past his face. They were clean, their clothes were clean, if all interchangeable, their hair cut the same as well, short off their necks. Men and women, he found, going from one to the next, with an utter lack of response that made him feel sick and scared. Old as Gaius, young as Freya, though no children.

And no one that looked like him. Middle-aged men, but no one tall and lanky, no one with sharp cheekbones and black hair and blue eyes.

Jeeter snapped something unhappy and vindictive-sounding as he passed to begin searching the rooms, "If I'd known you were going to be–" but Merlin was too preoccupied to pay attention.

It was hard to be here. Invisible among his kin, separate from their trials. It made him feel guilty that he wasn't one of them, and responsible to save them, somehow.

"I can't," he whispered, as his eyes blurred repeatedly, in spite of his blinking and the air moved cool-wet on his cheeks. "I don't know what to do. What can I do? I can't."

Not a one of them let on they'd heard him.

He tried to turn his attention to helping Jeeter, but he was so slow and clumsy today. His fingers were cold, and shook. His father wasn't present, and it was like winter in this room. Every spark of life in deep hibernation – and it had lasted for _years_. Every person in this room existed in similar slumber, time stolen from them without consent or even awareness of what they'd lost.

Every single person in this room would bleed green and suffer with kin. Except Jeeter, and Merlin, who'd bleed just as red as the rest and hide… And suddenly Merlin was gasping and shaking and black spots in his vision obscured the white walls and green carpets.

"Are you sick, now?" Jeeter said sharply, fleshy face scowling and ruddy with offense. "If you're going to puke or pass out, get outta here, I don't want to have to clean that up too."

For a moment, Merlin resisted. He didn't want to leave them, any of them. But what else was he to do? Declare himself and join them in a drugged stupor? Or try to coax them out, against locks and armed guards, little better than children as they were? To eat what, and sleep where?

He stumbled for the metal stairway leading up to the viewing room and the exit, bruising and splitting his shins, guiding himself through the tears in his eyes with his hands on higher steps. Not a one of the green-knights noticed. And when he reached the top, there was no handle on the door. It could only be opened from the viewing-room side. He slumped against it, swallowing repeatedly to keep from sobbing or vomiting – and when the door moved, it took him a moment to realize, because it only felt like his own dizziness lurching him off the step.

The sharp older woman leaned on the handle and stared down at him; he shrank back, sure for one terrible moment that he had been discovered. Then she said in dismissive disgust, "You're useless, aren't you? Go on, get out of here."

He obeyed the jerk of her head with tentative, awkward movements, feeling like his own motions were out of his control.

There on the higher counter was a tray of equipment – flat-empty plastic bags and clip-coiled tubing and a little metal tray of tiny-slender metal straws – each with one end narrowed to a sharp point. It smelled sick and sterile, and made him think of the blood he'd given to Gwen there in her trailer beneath the squeak-whisper-shriek of the turbine that helped power this place…

A bag for each person, maybe. Every day? Every other day? They'd slide those metal straws right into a medial-cubital, like Gwen called it, and the green-tinted blood would slide out, and the bag would be taken downstairs and portioned and added and mixed and _sold…_

Maybe the carpet was green not to simulate grass but to disguise any drops spilled. Or maybe those drops were too valuable, and never spilled…

And he was to the stairwell door before it occurred to him he might have committed some small act of sabotage in private protest, like knocking the tray to the tile floor. As it was, he could only freeze and stare, once more, as both she and the younger woman, still seated, turned blank gazes on him. There was no shame there, no uncertainty – only an almost suspicious curiosity of him and his reaction.

He whispered, "How could you?"

A moment passed without either of them responding, before he fumbled for the door latch, and stumbled out into the stairwell.

The air felt clearer, colder, but his temples throbbed hotly, and his breathless clumsy movements echoed through five stories of stairs. He had to get out, get away. Away from concrete and paint and metal and people watching him. As he fumbled down the endless left turns of the stairwell, he thought about finding Gwen – but was aware there would be questions for her, if he did that as he was now, scarcely keeping his grip on self-control.

Out. Out and away. He slammed through the last door, locked so that it only allowed egress – retreated half a step at the onslaught of a wind that smelled of ash and ice – then took off running.

He wished he was back in the holler. The cradle shape comforting him, even as he sought safety and freedom along the ridges. He was the watcher, there. And he knew the caves and crevices, the creatures there welcomed and hid him. It was too open here, by comparison. He skittered from one tree to the next, burying himself in the fields currently abandoned by workers – stopped to glance behind him for any sign of threat or pursuit.

And finally found himself on the last hill overlooking the residential district, gasping through a stitch in his side and what felt like ice crystals in his lungs, and he remembered that his coat was still on a wall-hook by the cot assigned to him in the basement of Production. And somehow now seemed the perfect time to purge his stomach.

Weak and shaky, Merlin pulled himself away from the mess and stench. He'd get dirty, crawling on the ground like this. But there was a depression between two of the largest washed-out roots of a maple tree, there on the hill; he curled himself up and closed his eyes, forcing all his thoughts to darkness.


	12. Questions and Choices

**Chapter 12: Questions and Choices**

Merlin remained in hiding among the roots of the trees some hours, at one point aware of the sound of children's voices as school released them to return to their homes, babbling like a distant stream. Aware of other vehicles returning the adults from other work-places. Aware of actual darkness drawing closer.

Finally, under the cover of dusk, he pulled himself to his feet and crept toward the building he had come to call home, here in enemy territory, coming around from behind, between the building and Gwen's parked camper. And stuttered to a confused halt at the sight of an unfamiliar vehicle parked at the last remaining section of crumbling curb.

It was a boxy van, maybe white under the layers of caked mud and dust and paint scraped away in minor collisions. There was a man at the open middle doors, rummaging with his back to Merlin, a whip-thin man with a salt-and-pepper bristle that didn't start til the middle of the top of his skull. A woman was next to him, leaning casually on the vehicle, talking quietly – also middle-aged, but plump, her light brown hair short but showing no gray.

Disorientation whirled dizzily around Merlin as the woman noticed him. Gwen's camper was out of sight somewhere behind him, the housing building looked just like all the rest, the earth somnolent though uncultivated in this area, he was lost he was _lost_ – and he thought he might pass out. Again.

The woman was next to him before he knew it, reaching for his shoulder. "Hey, are you all right?"

He backpedaled so fast he almost tripped, and when he thudded into the wall of the building, he slid a few inches down before he caught himself.

"Don't be afraid," the woman said coaxingly, but came forward slowly. "There's no need. I'm sorry I startled you – my name's Lea, I'm new here. Do you live in one of these buildings? What's your name?"

Lea. That was – vaguely familiar. But the man was coming up also, curious and brusque, and Merlin very much wanted to run again.

The man said, "Who's that, Lea?"

"It's all right," Lea told Merlin, ignoring the man. "Just breathe a minute til you can talk again."

He slid all the way down to his haunches, hugging his arms around himself against the cold, blinking up at the pair of strangers, head and shoulders outlined against an overcast gray sky, the only sunset a lurid thread of scarlet around the horizon. And salvation came with the bang of a door and a worried voice.

"Merlin!" The Texan pushed familiarly past the thin man to hunker down beside him, and Merlin gave up on trying to rise and stand on his own feet, instinctively twisting toward his friend – which only appeared to alarm him more. "Are you hurt? Is Gwen hurt? They haven't found out, have they?"

Above them, the woman breathed to the man, "Oh, this must be her green-knight…"

"No," Merlin said to Gwaine. "I don't know, I don't know." The edge of uncontrolled panic was beginning to dull once again, but it left him feeling exhausted and a bit hopeless. "I made it to the fifth floor, Gwaine. They're there."

The woman, Lea, crouched down just beyond his knees, and he saw from the humid sympathy in her green eyes – surprising to see the color at this time of dusk, he thought distantly that they must be very bright normally – that she knew what he was talking about. Instead of intimidating him further, it served to settle him a bit, if Gwaine and Gwen trusted the stranger couple enough to tell some secrets. Though he was glad the man was keeping his distance for now.

"Your dad?" Gwaine said in a low voice.

Merlin shook his head, shook his whole body. "No, he's not. He's not there."

For the first time Merlin thought, _that must be because he's dead_. He raised the heels of his hands to his eyes to hold the tears back, and belatedly felt the rasp of dirt and debris that must have clung to his palms.

The man said abruptly, "Gwen's coming, I see her down the road."

Merlin didn't lift his head; he felt Gwaine shift to a sitting position beside him, hip to hip. He resisted the intimacy, but his friend draped one arm over Merlin's shoulders, and it was easier to relax than throw him off. The woman rustled around a bit also, and then Gwen knelt beside him in a rush of warmth and the smell of chemicals, one off-setting the other so he didn't pull away.

"Oh, Merlin…" Her arms were around his neck also, pulling his head against her heart, and for a moment he listened to her quickened breathing and rapid heart-beat – she must have been running – like he was a child with his mother again.

He heard her explain to the others, how she'd been found and informed of Merlin's dereliction of duties, how she'd had to reassure them, she would make sure he didn't violate the confidentiality of Production. No one would be coming for him, and relief make the guilt sharp in his heart again, and his own silence was unbearable.

And then words were spilling out of him, a low unending cry of anguish over what he had seen – and what he hadn't – what he had experienced, and the horror of the truth behind the life-giving fertilizer. Life siphoned literally from the select few, to provide for the oblivious millions. Deliberately, by those who probably ought to know better… and he could do _nothing_.

They let him speak without interruption, and when silence fell, no one broke it. Merlin was content that the others would keep the habitual busyness of the residential district at bay for enough of privacy, here at the front of their building, and at the moment he preferred the cold impersonal outdoors to any fireside coziness inside.

"I don't get it," he said, still pressing spurts of color into the backs of his eyelids with the heels of his dirty hands. "I don't understand. I know everyone says that, and I know I'm not special to demand or deserve an explanation…"

"Why, what? Why your dad? Why did Pendragon decide to use your people like this?"

The male stranger added softly, "Why the Collapse at all?"

"Why do bad things happen to good people," Lea said, her voice husky like she'd been crying, and maybe she had. Maybe Merlin had, too; maybe they all had. "Why world wars and genocide and mass starvation?"

It was a question without human answer; none of them made the attempt.

_Why me_, Merlin didn't say aloud. Because it made his exhaustion and loneliness and despair seem quite childish. Did _why_ really matter? It wouldn't change anything. It wouldn't change him, or the job he'd been given to do.

"I don't know if I can do this," he said, speaking mostly to Gwaine and Gwen next to him, though he found he didn't mind if the other two heard. He rubbed his hands down his face, trying to clean it of bits and pieces of bracken, and gazed past them all, past Gwaine to the last warm-orange sliver left of the day's light. Then he laughed, a bitter, helpless sound. "I don't even know what it is I should do."

"Start small," Gwaine suggested. "Start with your dad. All we know is where he isn't, right? So what does that mean?"

"He either escaped or died," Merlin said, rubbing his cuff at the corner of his eye, where a particle of dirt was making it water. One or the other, or maybe he'd never know. And then what?

"They'd keep records of that, maybe," Gwen said. "Maybe there in Production, or maybe in Aredian's office?"

"The way I see it, then," Gwaine continued, "we've got two choices. We can either ask, straight up, or we can sneak a look for ourselves, somehow."

The male stranger offered, "If I go to speak to Aredian about a job, maybe I can manage a distraction and a quick search of the office."

Lea gave him a swift, anxious look, but said nothing.

"That won't do any good unless we know his name," Merlin said, and let his head swing sideways to look at Gwaine. "I think I'm going to have to ask Arthur about speaking to his gran." By the two newcomers' lack of reaction to the name, he assumed his friends had filled them in on their almost accidental acquaintance with the Pendragon heir, as well.

Gwaine hummed agreement and support. "Gwen? Jerry, Lea? How about sitting on your more revolutionary plans, at least until we see if we can find out anything more about his dad?"

"Revolutionary," Jerry snorted. "My vote is to leave Missouri altogether, start a new lab somewhere else. Make this stuff without the green blood, as a rival production plant."

"In any case, we can certainly wait a few more days to make sure we've done all we can to help Merlin," Lea said, to all of them but mostly addressing Jerry. Merlin wondered tangentially if the two of them were married.

"I suppose…" First things first. "I'll have to go back to work tomorrow," Merlin sighed. "If I even have a job, anymore. Maybe I can go to Distribution after my shift, catch Arthur there."

"I could go, if you want," Gwen volunteered. "Maybe ask him to come for dinner again? It might be easier to talk to him here…" As Merlin looked at her to consider the suggestion, her eyes flicked defensively to Gwaine's. "What?" she said defiantly.

"I have a feeling he's probably a good guy," Gwaine commented evenly. "It'll be a shock whenever he finds out, what's been going on with his father's company… but I don't know him well enough to guess which side he'll decide to take. And I don't think it's our place to tell him something like this, anyway." He frowned at Gwen, mock-stern, and she huffed a shrug of unconcern.

"How about dinner, anyway?" Jerry said, a fairly smooth change of uncomfortable subject. "I'm so hungry my belly thinks my throat's cut."

The chuckle that bubbled up from Merlin's chest was entirely unexpected – but not unwelcome. Whatever it was he was supposed to do, it seemed at least that he would not be facing it alone.

…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

It was boredom, Arthur thought. The boredom of repetition and duty and isolation – and lack of mental or physical challenge – which he hadn't minded or even noticed much until he had something to compare it to.

The interest in his new fr- hm, acquaintances. Gwen, smart and prickly and the only female he'd ever met who seemed unconcerned about her looks or the effect they had on others, especially men; he wanted her respect. Gwaine, immediately affable as a way of keeping the world at arms' length; from him he'd like to be one of the few, like Merlin, who got to see the serious side of a true friendship. And Merlin, both simple and complex, uneducated and intelligent, shy and yet brave; he'd like it if they could get to the point where Merlin didn't startle and stammer in his presence, but knew him and trusted him enough to relax. Maybe even to welcome his company, someday.

It had occurred to him, because these were three of his own age who hadn't grown up here on the fort, it might be the easiest for all four of them to get over his last name than anyone else he might meet on Leonard Wood. And he could actually have friends for once.

Which was why he'd gone unasked to Gran for the name of Merlin's father.

Gran had hemmed and hawed and gazed out the window blankly, and finally said, _Don't get that boy in trouble_.

Why? Because his father was so strict about showing favoritism? Sarcasm.

Or did it have something to do with whatever secret Gwen seemed to think Production kept? The thought made him stumble on the staircase down from Pendragon quarters to Aredian's office on the second floor, but he was only a single step from the bottom, and alone in the stairwell, so it didn't matter much.

Coming out onto the second floor – dim, because two light panels were currently out, and it was a cloudy sort of day anyway – he noticed casually that Aredian wasn't alone in his office. The door was several inches ajar, and voices issued; three men, he thought, Aredian and two guests. Arthur loitered by the corner to wait and listen for his opportunity.

Aredian's office was the first on the wing, bordering the open area that mimicked the lobby area below on the first floor; Arthur leaned his shoulder on the wall and gazed out the windows to the front field area a story below, at the faint green of the winter wheat coming up. He discovered that he could hear the conversation; he glanced up the hall and down, but though other offices were occupied, some even with doors open – and a figure crossed the hall from one to another at the far end of the east wing – he didn't believe anyone else was in a position to hear.

He was his father's son, he concluded, raising his chin and not moving. He had a right to hear, and he was curious.

"Still no sign of our deserter, then."

Arthur's mind immediately assumed they were discussing the thief that had absconded a few months prior, though _deserter_ was a strange term. It made him think of a late gray afternoon at the search hangar, a green-and-white camper and the damage done in the name of… searching for stolen goods…

A second voice, deeper than the other stranger's, interrupted by a habitual clearing of the throat. "We tracked down the rumor of a… _hem_, green-knight, in Yelder's Hollow. And found – _hem_ – sufficient evidence to support the claim. However, _hem_, it is not a recent phenomenon. It seems to have been present there – _hem_ – a decade or more."

Green-knight. Bedtime stories, to Arthur, of mysterious and extinct heroes, raised for a time of need, disappearing as his own father's fertilizer company met the demands of responding farmland. His first reaction was solely deep-seated excitement - there were _more _of them?

His second reaction was – wait a minute, the _thief_ was a green-knight?

"Still," Aredian commented gravely, "it seems likely that Balinor would have gone to another green-heart for shelter and assistance."

Again, _wait_. Balinor? Arthur turned his head to better catch the flow of conversation. Peter Balinor was Merlin's father's name, according to Gran. Was he the thief? And a green-knight?

"We thought so too," the third voice sounded more youthful, spoke more quickly in comparison. "But after about a week, we started to consider that someone might have tipped that one off – we think it fled before we could so much as lay eyes on it."

It. That was a cold trickle of apprehension over his maybe childish enthusiasm.

"Tracking its – or, hem, _their_ – movements out of Yelder's Hollow took some time," the gravelly voice went on. "Two weeks ago there were rumors out of a town called – _hem_ \- Nobel Corner, that a single green-knight, a young male, had been – _hem_ \- captured and handed over to one of our own bounty hunters."

"_Young_ male, you say," Aredian confirmed.

"Yes. We thought to return here to question it on the whereabouts of the other – supposing it knew, and our only lead so far – only to find that the bounty hunter in question had lost control of her cargo – and her life, actually – and it escaped."

"Her," Aredian repeated. "Dottie Pridemore?"

"Yes sir, _hem._ It was."

"Her assistant reported this to me weeks ago," Aredian said, a note of dissatisfaction entering his cold voice, "but there was no mention made of a green-knight."

"Gwaine Southerland, you mean, sir. We tracked down the pair of convicts trying to sell her trailer, they told us a story of Southerland attempting to free the green-knight – that was what sparked the prisoner uprising. In the confusion, they were unaware of what happened to Southerland or the green-knight."

Arthur put out his hand to the corner of the wall, feeling the world sway around him. It was impossible - he'd misheard – it was a joke…

There was more.

"Well, Southerland is here now," Aredian stated. "He shall be brought in for questioning."

"There's something else, sir. We checked the gate log and it seems that Southerland entered the post in the company of another young man."

"The green-knight himself, here? For what purpose?"

Arthur could _see_ the security director's pale-brown eyes, narrowed but emotionless. He could barely breathe, and tried unsuccessfully to avoid thinking the worst. Merlin was… was… what _was_ he?

"Perhaps what Balinor was – _hem_ – unable to accomplish."

Arthur thought of stolen assets and smuggled contraband. He thought of sabotage and Gwaine's smile. He thought of Merlin's stammering shyness and story of his long-lost father. He didn't know what to think. Part of him was furious at the possibility that he'd been taken in, lied to and manipulated and used. Part of him hoped there was an innocent explanation.

"What was that second name?" Aredian demanded. "He needs to be apprehended immediately, as well."

"He signed in as Merlin Gaius."

Arthur heard Gran's voice, _Don't get that boy in trouble_.

He was moving for the staircase before he consciously intended to, but didn't pause, descending to the main floor at a jog, emerging to the lobby where the dark-skinned attendant with the braids tied behind his neck watched his Harley-Masterson.

There were two choices before him, if he wanted answers before anyone else. He could go first to Gwaine – but the motor-pool was farther away than his other option, and in any case, Gwaine was a Texan. He could very well refuse to answer, demand his rights as a foreign national, and simply accept deportation.

Or, Merlin and Gwen. They were much closer, both physically, and to the answers.

He couldn't believe sabotage of Gwen. She'd been working in Production for how long now, and not a hint of grievance even of machinery malfunction. She'd complained of conditions to him, the lack of a department for research and development. She'd said, _what about the innocents who get hurt_. Perhaps it was a long con, as they said, but…

Merlin. Arthur could not believe the boy's demeanor had been _intended_ to draw his interest and sympathy. No one could fake that dedication to menial labor, and then the apprehension in his eyes when Arthur approached him. And the story of the father had been corroborated by Gran, who'd seen Merlin at the market; she'd been the one to ask for introductions.

Ignoring the temptation to kick-start the Harley in the lobby for the satisfyingly rebellious growl of the motor reverberating all around, Arthur instead wheeled the machine through the door held open by the attendant.

"Morning, Mr. Arthur."

He ignored the greeting and turned his bike toward Production. His boyish pretense of heroically reckless riding and vital communication seemed inexcusably juvenile, now.

Grimly he pushed his speed; he probably didn't have long before agents or guards arrived to arrest Merlin, and with his own level of involvement – putting in a word for Gwaine's employment, transferring Merlin with no explanation – he probably would be in for a stern question or seventeen from his father, himself. And he couldn't hope to be allowed to confront the accused himself, after arrests had been made.

Cutting the engine and slamming down the kickstand, five yards to the side of the main door of Production, he spared a brief thought for the implications of him being caught here in conversation with Merlin – and an even briefer thought for his abandoned post in Distribution. Didn't matter; they could do without him for today.

There was a lobby guard for Production, the same as for the HQ building, a large bald man with a solid gut and a gaze even more solid. "Mr. Arthur," he said, in a voice like gravel rubbing along a riverbed. "How can I help you."

"Merlin Gaius, where is he." Arthur itched to yank open either of the doors off opposing sides of the entrance chamber and stalk the corridors til he found the boy – but he needed to know which direction to take to begin with, and he needed it unlocked in any case. Even his father's son could not wander Production aimlessly.

"He's employed in this building?" the lobby guard said, leaning over his desk to check a listed roster of names.

"Yes, on the maintenance crew."

"Ah." The man straightened, respectfully unapologetic. "Only Ackerman, the supervisor, can tell you where the individual members of his crew are assigned any given day, but he's probably on the–" the guard checked the watch on his wrist – "third floor right now."

Well, at least he was here before any of Aredian's arresting officers. "If you don't mind," he said, gesturing to the lobby door on the left.

"Of course, Mr. Arthur." The lobby attendant delayed long enough to make a notation on another sheet – probably recording Arthur's unexpected visit – before stepping to the door. Arthur noted that the man never once turned his back on him, or the door – they were _wary_, here. Even more so than at home in the Headquarters building.

"Thanks," Arthur said, and heard the key turn the lock once again, the scraping sound a bit annoying in the echoing silence of the hallway.

Not seeing Merlin in the initial corridor, he turned to the stairwell and jogged upward. Yanking himself along on the handrail, he felt that the delay had cooled his temper, somewhat. The vague ache of betrayal had eased slightly, beginning to be eclipsed by the hope for an explanation of misunderstanding, only.

Opening the door onto the first corridor of the third-floor east wing, he glanced first one way, then the other, and chose at random, striding down toward the end of the wing. He saw a few people, wearing white smocks rather than gray coveralls, and ignored their greetings to glance down the short cross-halls. On the way back, he'd try some of these doors, in case this Ackerman was supervising more closely than just corridor patrol.

He heard the resonant thud-and-click of one of the big heavy lab-doors, and glanced perfunctorily over his shoulder on the off chance that it might be–

A round-cheeked girl, with shoulder-length black curls clipped back from her face, paused for a moment to study the note she carried in one hand. He reversed himself immediately. "Gwen!"

She looked up, surprised to see him. And evidently pleased, which twisted his heart in his chest. "Arthur! What are you doing here?"

"Where is he?" He stalked back to her, unsmiling. "Where's Merlin?"

"Working, I expect…" Dark eyes studied him as her fine brows drew together with the first hint of worry. "What's going on? What's wrong?"

He said, "They know about Merlin. Aredian, and my father." It was a safe bet, anyway, that the Camelot head of security would have passed on news of such import as soon as possible.

There was shock in her eyes now – but knowledge, too, and his heart sank. She was also involved. She tucked the note into a pocket in her smock and looked him over keenly. "What are _you_ doing here, then?" she asked.

"How much do you know?" he demanded, lifting his hands to his hips. He stood quite close, and he was taller by several inches, but she didn't retreat an inch.

"About what, exactly?"

"The thief that escaped two months ago. What he stole or why he or his associates would try to infiltrate Leonard Wood. Sabotage. Did you know Merlin was a green-knight?"

"I don't know anything about a thief or sabotage," Gwen declared. "But yes, I know about Merlin's ability – does that make a difference to you?"

He didn't ask if she meant, to Arthur's opinion of her – or of Merlin. "It makes a difference to me if he's planning on causing trouble," he snapped. "Why did he come here?"

"We already told you – to find his father," she retorted.

"And did he?" Arthur challenged. Not if Merlin knew his father had already escaped justice, and was still part of some plot to attack the company.

"No, Merlin said he wasn't here – what's this about a thief and sabotage? Why do they think Merlin's involved with that, and what do they mean to do with him?"

Arthur considered. He still didn't know exactly how long their threesome had been together, but his other accusation had honestly confused her, he could see that much. It was possible she'd been duped, too. Unless that hope of misunderstanding and explanation was also still possible.

"I thought they were extinct, the green-knights," he said. "I overheard Aredian and two agents, talking. I believe a green-knight employed here stole something valuable, and the two agents were tracking him down. They assumed the thief would seek sanctuary with others like him, and were following rumors, which led them to–"

"Merlin," she finished, making the connection herself.

"Yes, but what they didn't know was that the man, Peter Balinor, was–"

"It's genetic, of course," she blurted, clearly horrified by her thought, and oblivious to her interruption of him. "His _father_. His father _escaped_. And what he stole was… _himself_."

"What?" Arthur said. Merlin had mentioned the worth of his father's work, the possible disinclination of Camelot to release him from an employment contract – Gwen had mentioned confidentiality vows…

"They'll arrest Merlin – Gwaine too, probably?" she went on, quickly. "No, Arthur – I totally believe neither of them knew anything about a fugitive. And neither of them would consider sabotage."

He opened his mouth to say, _And you?_ but the words wouldn't come.

And she continued speaking, urgently – as if this question was the most important consideration. "Why did you come here?"

"To ask him to his face if he lied to me," Arthur said bluntly. "To ask if all of you were playing some cover, using me."

"Honestly? It had crossed my mind, but no," she said – and oddly, the unselfconscious confession seemed to settle and stabilize him. "That's not all, though, is it? You came to warn him."

"My father is acting judge of the fort," Arthur told her. "With Aredian and his agents convinced, you know Merlin is not going to change anyone's mind, even if he's innocent. You need to find him and get him out of here before Aredian decides to lock down the post – then run and keep running."

She studied him with a strange look of sober evaluation. "No."

"What?" he said. "Why not?"

"Because there's more going on here than just his guilt or innocence of these few charges," she said sadly. "They'd never acquit him at a trial, even if he had a boat-load of evidence and Gwaine's quick tongue. They may not even _give_ him a trial, which means _you_ may be his only chance… come with me."

"Now what?" he snapped, though he allowed her to take his hand and lead him to the stairwell. _I can't believe you don't know,_ she'd said. His head was throbbing with a dread he didn't fully understand – like he approached a great chasm he couldn't see in the dark.

She didn't answer until they were in the stairwell again, hanging over the rail briefly – to check that they were alone, he assumed. "What do you know about green-knights?"

"Heroes of the post-collapse decline of Midwest farmland," he said. "They helped with the research that initially developed our fertilizer formula, and then–" he hesitated, not sure if he could articulate his impression of the end of the story, or even if it was accurate, anymore. Riding off into the sunset, never to be seen or heard from again?

"And then?" she prompted, looking over her shoulder as she led him up the stair.

He shrugged uncomfortably. "I supposed that the ability died out with the generation," he said. "When there wasn't a need, any longer."

"You're partly right," she said, facing forward. "They did help to develop the fertilizer formula. However…" She paused at the last door at the top of the stair, marked with black stenciled 5; briefly he searched his memory to discovery if he knew what this floor was used for, but was distracted by agony in her eyes. "Are you ready for this? My mother, Arthur, made a mistake she never forgave herself for. It defined the rest of her life, and mine…"

For a moment he floundered for some words of adequate reassurance, completely in the dark about whatever bothered her. Then he said, "My gran says, to follow your heart, and make your own mistakes, not anyone else's."

"She sounds like a really great lady." Gwen gave him a tense smile; he thought incongruously that Gran would like her, also. "Well, here we go." She rapped on the door smartly with her knuckles. _Another lock? _Then she gestured and said, "You're up. If you want to know what they've been hiding, see for yourself, discover the secret…"

The door opened to a thin woman in her late middle-age, fair hair fading to streaks of white, clipped back severely. She wore a white smock and seemed surprised to see and recognize him – but unimpressed.

"Yes, Mr. Arthur? I was not informed you would be visiting us today?"

"Neither was I," he said with as much authority as he could muster. "Surprise inspection. Please excuse me."

"I'm sorry, sir, I cannot allow even you, without Mr. Pendragon's permission–"

Arthur didn't think he could wait for that. Cool his heels and temper, start to consider how such a meeting with his father would go, what excuses he could give – what his father's reaction would be to his curious initiative… No, far better to face his father having already claimed whatever information there was to be discovered, here.

Though she sputtered and resisted, even daring to push against his chest momentarily, there was no way she could hold him back. He stepped forcefully, though not rudely, over the threshold and past her; Gwen trailed him with innocuously quiet respect.

He hoped he wasn't taking that first step into the abyss.


	13. In Production

**Chapter 13: In Production**

"Well, at least you weren't stealing supplies to sell on the black market," Ackerman sighed, marking one of the sheets he carried in a leather folder tucked under his arm. "Your ration card will be docked accordingly on Saturday, and you'll have to go back to work in the basement–" Jeeter glowered – "and a repetition of careless and irresponsible behavior will have you transferred, in spite of your recommendations. Any whisper of confidentiality betrayed will be punished with significant jail time. That clear?"

"Yes, sir," Merlin managed. "Thank you, sir." And prepared himself to ignore Jeeter's sarcastic complaints and punitive laziness indefinitely.

He was so successful at it that when he heard his name spoken from the base of the stairs, he started from the laundry table and looked up half-expecting to see Gwen's white smock and black curls, though she'd already parted from him for the day with a quick squeeze of his hand and a whispered, "Good luck! Be patient…"

It wasn't Gwen.

Two men, dressed in black, and not peering around – but fixated on him. He froze.

"Merlin Gaius. Come here, we want to speak with you."

They were blocking the only stair from the maintenance crew quarters up to the main level and the doors to the outside world. And standing still would only antagonize them unnecessarily.

As he forced his reluctant feet to carry him forward, Jeeter appeared to comment snidely, "This is what happens when you walk out on a shift."

The man on the right shifted his attention instantly. "You, too. What's your name?"

Jeeter stuttered as he answered, but Merlin was focused on the man on the left, who never looked away from him – the closer he got, the more it seemed to him that he recognized the man.

"Merlin Gaius," he said, stepping forward with something in his hand that glinted silver. "Of Yelder's Hollow, right?" He cleared his throat negligently. "Where's Peter Balinor?"

His boots were stuck to the floor. Which made no sense, it was clean.

The man kept coming. "Balinor came to you, didn't he? Talked you into some – _hem_ \- plan to free the others upstairs, didn't he. Then you ran into some trouble in Noble Corner, _hem_, got yourself caught – tell me, was Balinor involved in the incident with the – _hem_ \- bounty hunter's trailer? You know what's good for you, you help us and tell us everything before – _hem_ – your pal Gwaine squeals, Aredian will go easier on you."

He grabbed Merlin's shoulder roughly, turned him away. Merlin stared into the basement gloom in blind confusion and fear, only distantly registering the chill and click of metal around first one wrist, then the other, linking and restraining his hands behind his back.

The other turned from questioning Jeeter as Merlin's captor pushed him toward the stairs, and for a moment the light from above fell fuller on his face, and Merlin realized why they'd seemed familiar. Dale and Daniels, he'd seen hiking in the holler. They spoke to each other – and maybe to him – as they mounted the stairs, but he couldn't hear clearly past the beat of his heart and the rhythm of his breathing.

Was Gaius okay? If Freya had made it to the holler, was she? And, now what? Evidently Gwaine was going to get in trouble, too – and what would he say if they questioned him – but no one said anything about Gwen.

Daniels pushed the outer door open and Merlin through it with the same splay-fingered gesture, and there about five yards from the door, Arthur's bike leaned on its short slender stand. So he was here. At Production, somewhere. Why? To see Merlin, or Gwen – or on some unrelated errand?

Beyond was a boxy black vehicle, with a rear door open to a cramped space with two short benches on each side that faced each other.

"Come on, now – in you go."

Daniels shoved Merlin, who banged his shin trying to climb inside, unbalanced with his hands behind his back. The older agent with the throat-clearing habit, Dale, went around to the driver's seat, but Daniels joined Merlin in the back, slouching easily facing him. Studying him. That gaze – sharp, clever, knowing, yet also _wrong_ – trapped him just as surely as the metals cuffs and the shell of the vehicle around him.

Merlin focused on breathing through his panic as Dale started the vehicle's engine with a rough smoky-oily rumble.

What now? Which way? Run and hide wasn't really an option, and he'd always been a lousy liar, the few times he'd tried. And yet… he didn't feel like these men would believe him.

Daniels' questions started again, cruelly insinuating. "So were you going to use explosives? Maybe smuggle some of the guns they're running in from the Lakes? S'matter – don't you care about innocent casualties? You never seen a man gut-shot, or with both his thumbs blown off or maybe both legs below the knee – or is it that you see that all the time, and don't care anymore?"

Merlin's brows drew together in uneasy discomfort at the images created by the man's words. They knew who he was – but somehow they had mistaken him entirely. Somehow, he didn't think that anything he said was going to make them turn him loose and let him return to Yelder's Hollow.

"I don't know anyone called Peter Balinor," he said tiredly, trying to lean over his knees til Daniels shoved him back. But instead of the one answer diminishing the questions, it only served to spark an increase.

"You think Balinor will care that we've caught you? You think he'll come storm the post or something, stage a rescue for you? Or will he simply cut his losses and move on to plan B? Tell you what, kid, you don't owe that guy nothing, you better tell us everything and save yourself."

But the black vehicle was parking with an abruptness that jerked his body sideways. Daniels didn't move, waiting instead with his eyes on Merlin for Dale to get out and come around to unlock the back door from the outside.

Merlin slid down more carefully than he'd entered the vehicle, reaching with his boots for the cracked pavement before his weight had fully left the seat. The air smelled thick and close, the low clouds spitting moisture and the breezes insidiously chilly.

"Come on – _hem_ – Aredian's waiting."

He didn't immediately recognize the building, but they seemed to be using a private side entrance, and left the long tiled hallway immediately for a stairwell. The sounds of their boots echoed carelessly and his ears wanted to flinch away.

"Glad this assignment's finally over," Daniels commented to Dale, forcing Merlin to climb first with an iron hand clamped just above his elbow. It was awkward; it made him feel like he was going to fall backwards even as he leaned into the upward hike without the use of his arms "Be nice to sleep in my own bed again."

"With your – _hem_ – own wife?" the other suggested sardonically.

"Shut up."

"It's only til Aredian sends us out again, anyway. _Hem_. Balinor's still out there somewhere."

They directed Merlin to the second-floor door, which seemed to be as high up as the building went, and emerged into a hallway the twin of the one below. Tiled floor, lined with doors mostly closed, but the few open ones seemed to be offices – desks and bookshelves and file cabinets. Their footsteps stomped and shuffled and he was embarrassed even without anyone watching – where was everyone?

He looked further, out the windows of these few rooms they passed, to see if he could identify where they were. If anyone was there.

Winter wheat, he saw. Saw that first, before he saw the man behind the desk.

Narrow face, pale dead eyes. Merlin thought confusedly of a copperhead, coiled but provoked – and tried to take a stuttered step backward, with the result that he collided with Dale in the doorway, and was shoved forward. Daniels pressed him down into the nearest chair, an unpadded straight-back.

"Merlin Gaius for you, sir," Daniels said, with no little satisfaction. "But he was not inclined to cooperate with us. He's been quiet as a mouse, you might say. Mr. Aredian."

Aredian, Merlin remembered. Dottie's boss. The man stood, slowly, eyes fixed unblinking on Merlin. He found himself trying to shrink back in the chair, but his wrists pinched behind him, and his arms were twisted awkwardly, and he wanted quite badly to be able to cross them over his chest in a childishly protective gesture.

"Well," Aredian said. "I can't have that. You will answer my questions, and you will tell me what I need to know."

It surprised Merlin, that the sick-scared reaction was retreating. He had no urge to say anything to this man, as powerful as he was and as dangerous as he could no doubt be. No urge to confess, no urge to explain, or convince. Things could not possibly get any worse, could they? and he wasn't panicking.

"Let's start at the beginning, shall we?" Aredian said, calm and quiet in his absolute assurance of Merlin's eventual cooperation.

He came out from behind the desk, making motions to the two agents that Merlin didn't follow, but resulted in Merlin's cuffs behind unlocked from behind him and shifted to the front. There was no instinctive self-comfort possible, however, as Daniels kept hold of the short chain between his wrists, stretching his arms out, level with his chest.

And Dale pulled a knife from his pocket, twisting the blade free of the handle with a disturbing snap.

"Are you a green-knight?" Aredian said, coldly pleasant.

Merlin didn't answer. He shouldn't say yes; he couldn't say no. He didn't look away from that deadly fascinating pale gaze, somehow more dangerous than the blade of the knife.

Aredian hummed thoughtfully. "Men lie, young Merlin," he intoned conversationally. "Even to me, even when they know… that I know… the truth. So we'll cut to the chase, as they used to say. Because blood doesn't lie."

He jerked his head. Daniels yanked up the right sleeve of Merlin's shirt, and Dale laid the edge of the blade to the inside of his forearm. Merlin tried to escape, pulling away from Daniels and down to avoid the knife, but it happened too fast.

Dale made a short swift slicing motion – it stung, and a line of beads appeared on his skin. Red on red, welling from no more than a scratch.

"But sir, I thought-" Daniels shifted his weight and glanced at Aredian, confused and nervous.

Dale reached to pinch Merlin's arm, squeeze more blood out – Merlin made a sound of protest and pain, again attempting to evade the sting.

"Hm." Aredian leaned forward, studying Merlin's skin without expression.

Then he touched Merlin, moving his second sleeve up toward his elbow. A chill touched Merlin, and he shivered. And when Aredian put his forefinger on the first bruise, following Merlin's vein to a second, he couldn't help another shudder.

"Sir?" Daniels said.

"These are injection sites, aren't they?" Aredian remarked, resting one hip back on his desk. "You've found some way of masking the pigmentation of your blood, haven't you." Aredian waited for several seconds of silence.

Merlin bit his tongue, determined not to involve Gwen, especially since Gwaine was already in trouble. Aredian leaned forward as if the answer was written inside Merlin's eyes; Daniels let go, and Merlin leaned back, now curling his arms up between them.

"You're a lot smarter than you're generally given credit for, aren't you."

Daniels scoffed, and immediately excused himself, but Aredian wasn't offended.

"We'll see what the Texan has to say," he told the agent neutrally. "We won't be able to question him as thoroughly as this one, but I find I haven't the patience for wringing the truth out of him, and possibly Southerland will cooperate, for his sake."

Merlin had a startling flash of memory – Gaius's strong gnarled hands squeezing wash-water from a dish-cloth. And had no doubt that Aredian spoke more or less literally. He'd seen the reality of what Camelot was willing to do with those blessed the way he was; of course Aredian was fully aware of the fifth floor of Production.

Aredian made another gesture, which Daniels understood and obeyed, moving behind Merlin for a moment. When he emerged, to the back side of the desk, he held the plant from the corner cabinet, both hands on the clay pot. Aredian watched Merlin a moment more, as Daniels set the pot beside his hip on the desk.

Then he reached one hand, fingers outstretched, and snatched a slow, sickening handful of greenery. Merlin's breath twisted in his throat.

Since leaving Yelder's Hollow, he'd hidden and denied; since arriving on Fort Leonard Wood, he'd been ignored by the earth, the seeds and crops and trees. He hadn't liked it, but he'd borne it as a temporary necessity.

The jack-in-the-pulpit, fat and sleepy on Camelot fertilizer, woke to cry out in silent confused protest. Hard fingers gathered and crushed, releasing the scent of chlorophyll and the fresh moment of death, staining his skin green. Mangling stems, crumpling leaves, crushing the funny delicate curl of the flower, burying jack within the pulpit and he didn't stop and he didn't stop and tears blurred Merlin's eyes.

Aredian lifted the ruined jack from the pot, scattering dirt across desk and floor, and gave it a careless toss to Merlin's lap.

"Oh!" He caught it in his arms like it had been a baby, already mourning, comforting, easing its passage – slow but inevitable. "Why did you – how could you-"

Then the older man set the pot down between Merlin's boots with arrogant invitation, and he knew.

Merlin wasn't a planner. He didn't have answers like Gwaine, and didn't feel the lack like Gwen did. But he knew instinctively what was important, and never questioned that.

Balancing the jack-in-the-pulpit on his knees, he moved his arms to scoop it into the cradle of his fingers, though his wrists were still shackled together. For one moment he paused to evaluate Aredian, also twisted and dying in his own way, and when he spoke through the ache in his throat, he referred to more than the little plant.

"You have no value for life, do you."

No one said anything. Merlin leaned forward in his chair, settling the plant back into its dirt, digging the roots deeper with the backs of his fingernails before releasing it and tucking the loose crumbs of earth around it. Tenderly he stroked the stems, softly brushed the leaves. Coaxing healing and repair, up the torn roots, strengthening the stems.

The leaves quivered, brushing back against his fingers, hands, wrists, until finally the jack seemed to exhale in the relief of stability and health.

"_Damn_," Daniels said, and the oath sounded almost reverent.

Merlin looked up at Aredian, who had remained dispassionately perched on the desk, even as the agents appeared to have backed as far as they were able. "When you die someday, as all men must, you will have to answer for–"

Aredian slapped him. Hard, and abrupt, snapping his head to the side. And his neck ached and his face stung and he blinked as a new voice spoke.

"Wilfred." Mild curiosity, very little censure. "What is this?"

Merlin looked up with fascinated apprehension at the ruler of Camelot Corporation, all of Fort Leonard Wood, and arguably well beyond. Arthur's father, and there were noticeable similarities in brow and jaw shape, the clear blue color of his eyes.

But as the elder Pendragon himself stepped into the room, the air seemed to spark with a tension Merlin associated with cornered predators. A creature accustomed to striking fear indiscriminately suddenly finding itself cowering in unprecedented and uncomfortable and resented terror – as though Uther was, for some reason, afraid of _Merlin_. Arthur might have lacked the confidence of maturity and experience, but Merlin rather thought this man lacked a more fundamental confidence.

"This is the green-knight, sir," Aredian said. He didn't seem to feel the tension, maybe it was because he knew the other man much better. "It seems Balinor–" Pendragon glanced askance, and Aredian elaborated – "our escapee, sent us a replacement."

"Is that so," Pendragon said, studying Merlin. Momentarily those dark eyes dipped to take in the potted plant.

"No, sir," Merlin said wearily, the side of his face feeling tight and uncomfortable. "I don't know who Peter Balinor is."

"Why did you come to Fort Leonard Wood, then," Aredian said.

All four of them looked down on him.

"I never heard of Camelot til your agents came to my home and then I was told it wasn't safe for me to stay there. I came to ask you why. Why I can't be left alone to live in peace, why you can't find another way to make your fertilizer, and just…" he took a deep breath and felt very important and very foolish at once. "Just, let us go."

Pendragon stared at Merlin for an inscrutable moment. From out in the hallway, a feminine voice rose in a respectful hail. "Mr. Pendragon, there's a call for you, sir. It's about your–"

"One moment, please," Pendragon tossed over his shoulder, still holding Merlin's eyes. Then, as he turned to leave, he ordered Aredian in a low growl, "Put him in Production. Give it a day or two, he'll tell you anything you want to know."

…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

"There are people up here," Arthur said stupidly, transfixed by the sight of the great room beyond and below the small office off the stairwell. "Who are they?"

He never even glanced at the stern older woman who answered, though he alerted to her tone, suspicious and wary and disapproving of his forbidden presence. "They're green-knights, Mr. Arthur."

"All of them?" It felt like a gasp.

Shock enough to find there was one such person, and that he, Arthur had met and befriended him unknowing. But a crowd of them, _here_, and… wandering aimlessly? slouching mindlessly? and all empty-handed.

He moved before he thought about what he was doing, for the door at the far end of the office, aware that Gwen had intercepted the other woman behind him; he paid no attention to what they said – accusations or reassurances.

"No, you can't-"

"Do you _really_ want to stop him-"

Through the door, and he stumbled down the long metal staircase, disturbed by how very little interest the room's inhabitants showed his arrival.

"Excuse me," he said to the first one he met, a twig-thin woman whose skin hung off her bones in wrinkles.

Her face was tiredly expressionless, and her eyes skated right over him, and he didn't dare stop her on her slow endless journey, either by touching her or getting in her way. He tried another, a middle-aged man with bowed shoulders and no hair on his head.

"Why are you all here? What are you doing?"

No answer. The man stared him over vacantly, then turned and shuffled soundlessly over the green carpet. Arthur didn't look up as Gwen slowly, quietly descended, to slip very close to him and take one hand in both of hers. She made a sound of genuine pain, and moved so that he knew she was experiencing this room for the first time, too.

He swallowed, and it hurt. He took in the bunks – the IV stands - the toys. Inactivity, and the lack of interaction. "What–" His throat closed, and he had to clear it to continue. "What is this?"

Gwen told him.

First, historically. Collapse, infighting, infertility. Miracle, management… blood.

"That was nearly twenty years ago," he said, aghast. "And these people–" Less than children, who would at least be active and curious. Capable of activity and curiosity. He ended with a sinking feeling of despair, "They're not volunteers."

Gwen said nothing, and squeezed his hand. Tears stood shining in her dark eyes, and he couldn't look at that. He couldn't look anywhere else.

Instinctively he shied from more intimate implications to ask, "What about Merlin, then? What about Peter Balinor, and the crimes Aredian mentioned?"

So Gwen told him that, too, the story as it applied to Merlin personally. What he'd told her and Gwaine from his own memory, his relating of what Arthur's gran had said to him. Her own suspicion that Balinor was Merlin's father, escaped. That Camelot's pursuit of Balinor prompted Merlin to leave his home for the place his one possibly-remaining parent was last seen.

So. No theft, no intended sabotage, no lies – unless he counted not mentioning something as private as miraculous blood. Arthur felt ashamed of his temper, now, and was glad he had not found Merlin first.

He said, trying to look at all of the green-knights, and none of them, "How do they – what do they–"

Gwen understood his question without needing more articulation. "Snagger. Sometimes it happens, that a person develops a resistance to it, a sort of immunity… Maybe that happened to Merlin's father, and no one noticed that he wasn't… that he was capable of escape."

Arthur was ashamed of all of it, and sickened. And a bit lost. What this room represented was wrong, but…

"What do I do?" he said aloud. He heard Gran's voice, _I have a feeling your choice might be very close… follow in your father's footsteps, or step out on your own_… "What do we do?"

"I told you Merlin's story," Gwen said. "I didn't tell you mine."

He was startled into looking down into her eyes, deep and serious and so clear compared to the people around them; they were literally alone in a crowd.

"My mother wanted to work for your grandfather," she said. "Probably worked with Merlin's father too, come to think of it. She helped develop the formula… but when they couldn't substitute for the blood component, and then it… wasn't a priority to try, and instead settled into… this, she quit. My whole life was the search to replicate the formula. Even during our time on the farm there were cash-crops to pay for newer equipment and better supplies, experiments done on fertilizer-replacement. My father was her assistant for a while, and then I learned."

What impressed Arthur in that moment, more than her intelligence, more than the hint of hard times – was the utter lack of resentment or blame in her eyes when she looked at him. The material privilege of his upbringing which could be seen as, at the expense of hers. And Merlin's. And the years and lives of these dozens of drugged green-knights.

"My community has been working on the formula," Gwen went on, "since I came here. Merlin donated blood for them to study, and my friends Jerry and Lea believe they've found a viable alternative."

Arthur's first reaction was relief. "Well, _good_!"

Then concern – what would be done about the green-knights, kept drugged and unaware of the passage of their very lives? And something uncomfortably close to fear – what would his father say? decide, and do? It bothered him that he couldn't guess. He didn't know his father well enough – or maybe at all, if this room represented his father's morality and acceptable level of distasteful necessity. Collateral, involuntary sacrifice.

"Mr. Arthur. What are you doing here?"

He was startled into looking up, and focused on Aredian, standing in the open door at the top of the long metal stair. Though it wasn't surprising, really, that a call had been made to HQ – they had responded very quickly though, hadn't they? - he was disappointed his father had sent Aredian. Then shock and uncertainty began to harden into determination.

"Why?" he responded, gently removing his arm from Gwen's grip, stepping to the bottom of the stair to gaze up at his father's head of security. "I'm not supposed to be here? I'm not supposed to know about this?"

"It is your father's right to decide," Aredian said, unperturbed. "When to tell you about the more unpleasant details of this business."

"Unpleasant details?" Arthur's hand found the rail as his feet felt for the first steps. "This is criminal."

"Would you rather people starve?" Aredian returned dispassionately.

"I'd rather we found another way," Arthur snapped.

"There isn't one." Aredian stared down at him imperiously, pale eyes unblinking. "And anyone who claims otherwise–" hard to tell, but Arthur was sure he shifted his focus to Gwen momentarily before dismissing her utterly – "is lying."

"You and my father have been lying to me and to everyone for years," Arthur said, taking the stair slowly but steadily, Gwen only a few paces behind. "I don't think you get to criticize _anyone_ else's honesty."

It was fury he felt now, a sick helpless heat at the top of his belly – he couldn't heal, help, or comfort any of the green-knights in that moment, his father wasn't there, and he had no hope of convincing Aredian to reconsider. But he couldn't ignore this, couldn't go back to work like nothing happened, couldn't stand still and do nothing, couldn't even bring himself to walk past the man.

Aredian probably saw something of that in his expression and bearing. He reached into the office and grabbed someone's sleeve – someone Arthur had nearly forgotten in the magnitude of the problem he faced. He realized that Aredian had not come at his father's behest, because of a warning phone call, after all.

Merlin stumbled into view, hands cuffed in front of him. His eyes were wide as they landed on Arthur, but his jaw was firmly set.

"Are you okay?" Gwen said immediately. "Oh, _Merlin_…"

The boy nodded, but his eyes remained on Arthur. And for a disconcerting moment, it seemed very clear to him – though very odd at the same time – that each of them held the other's future in his hands.

"If you will excuse us, Mr. Arthur," Aredian said patronizingly, "we need to get our new addition acclimated."

Merlin made a sick, helpless noise in the back of his throat and _shivered_, glancing over the stair rail to the others below, still wandering oblivious to their confrontation.

Arthur said, "No."

Gwen inhaled sharply. Aredian said icily, "I beg your pardon."

Arthur mounted the remaining steps to Aredian's level before speaking again. "I said no. You can't do this. You won't do this. Unlock him and let him go and–" at that moment the severe older woman stepped into his angled view of the observation room, a single syringe held poised and ready in her hand, presumably for Merlin – "you know what, you're not going to administer that, either. Not any of it, not anymore."

Aredian nearly smiled. "I'm operating on your father's orders."

He jerked his head and two agents Arthur couldn't have named, though they looked familiar, pushed forward. One was inches shorter, and slight, the other at least a decade older, and more bearlike in his build. The smaller one pressed the female attendant back into the corner out of the way as if he needed to protect her from them. The bigger one took Arthur roughly by the arm to drag him into the observation room; a good deal of his extra pounds seemed to be muscle.

"Place _her_ under arrest as well, Dale," Aredian said casually.

"You don't touch her!" Arthur snapped. He shrugged away violently, spinning to face them with his arms out, his body angled to block Gwen from the two agents to shelter her behind him.

Merlin stepped forward as if following them was instinctive - and was yanked nearly off his feet by Aredian's fist in the back of his collar.

By the door, the smaller agent joined the other – Arthur looked in their eyes and saw only duty, that wasn't to _him_. He wouldn't be able to argue, command, persuade – for sure he couldn't force them to listen to him. Gwen gripped the back of his jacket and he felt _helpless_, caught between Aredian and his two agents, physically unable in the moment to protect both Merlin and Gwen. He hated it.

After a brief pause in which the two agents waited for their orders, and Arthur burned with his impotence, Aredian conceded dispassionately.

"Out, then."

Gwen made a soft sound of protest, and Arthur felt the same. But what other choice did he have? He began to back her across the room toward the building's main stairwell.

The bigger agent – Dale, if he had to guess, he'd reacted to the name more than the other – reached for the door as the second, younger female attendant shrank against the back counter, out of the way.

Arthur could not look away from Merlin's eyes, huge in his bloodless face, knowing he was leaving him to at least an initial dose of the mind-numbing drug, and without any guarantee that Arthur would be able to affect any changes for years, maybe. And the uncertainty of what repercussions his friends now faced, outside the room. Desperately Arthur tried to project his promise that he would do his best, across the room.

Merlin closed his eyes and swallowed. Then, looked back at Arthur and offered a pale twitch of his shy smile, and said aloud, "I trust you."

Arthur didn't realize he'd stepped forward til Agent Dale seized his arm again, manhandling him toward the door. Knowing the effort would be fruitless, Arthur couldn't seem to help resisting anyway, but–

One moment the agent was unbolting the door and pushing it open-

The next his hand was ripped from Arthur's sleeve. The agent yelped in surprise and alarm as he went flying down the first section of staircase.

"Gwaine!" Gwen said, in reactive chagrin for the action, and delight in his presence.

The curly-haired Texan filled the doorway, glancing back over his shoulder at the thud-and-clatter of the fallen agent that made Arthur cringe instinctively. Gwaine faced the room a moment later with a grin somehow more dangerous than any Arthur had ever seen on his face.

"Don't worry, he's just bruised his dignity," he said cheerfully, over the weak moaning echoing in the stairwell.

A feeling swelled in Arthur's chest, like riding the perimeter fence on his Harley-Masterson. A feeling like victory, and freedom.

"Hello, Mr. Aredian," Gwaine added carelessly, stepping into the room to let the heavy door swing shut behind him. "Sorry I didn't get the message you sent to the motor-pool. I had to run."

For a moment, no one moved.

Then everyone did – except maybe Gwen and the dark-haired female attendant.

The remaining agent dove for Gwaine, who crouched to meet him. But Arthur's attention was on Aredian - who snatched the single syringe from the older woman. She stumbled back as Merlin latched onto Aredian's wrist with both cuffed hands, squirming and kicking to avoid the sharp end of the needle.

Arthur – noting vaguely that Gwaine seemed to be holding his own through the traded punches – launched himself across the room. He'd trained with the fort's security force, and surely Aredian would consider his name and his father and not–

But Aredian reacted more swiftly than Arthur anticipated. Abandoning the drugged needle in a clatter to the floor, he gave Merlin a vicious shove toward the stair to the green-knights' room, where the door still stood open. Merlin staggered back and down, skipping a few stairs with a horrendous metallic clangor, before managing to catch himself on the railing, spread-eagled and probably bruised.

But in focusing on and lunging for his friend to help him save his balance, Arthur's attention slipped from the older man who'd been threatening the boy.

Aredian growled, taking a double handful of the front of Arthur's shirt, and used Arthur's own momentum to drive him through the open door as well. For a moment he believed – Merlin's attention flared like he believed – Aredian would use Arthur to knock both of them flying.

Instead Aredian shoved Arthur _way_ too far, backward over the railing that protected the top landing, the highest point of the stair.

Arthur felt himself slip, his boots skidding as he clung unwilling to Aredian's arms and clothes. It was a long drop to the floor. And that green carpet wouldn't mean much if he fell from this high up.

He wondered if any of the green-knights were taking notice, now.

"You arrogant whelp!" Aredian spat in Arthur's face. "You dare judge your betters? You have no weight to throw around, you understand me, no influence with dear old dad compared to me. You best keep in mind how much he trusts me - and the fact that accidents happen."

Out of Arthur's range of vision, Gwen was shrieking, one of the other females screaming back. The top rail was a hard line of judgment against the small of his back and – the scales were tipping.

He felt Merlin tried to right himself and scramble back up, heard him shout, "No!"

"Aredian!" Gwaine bellowed from inside the room. "Let him go or I snap your agent's neck!"

"No, you won't," Aredian countered over his shoulder, without taking his eyes from Arthur.

"Arthur-" Merlin managed, clutching at his elbow, his clothes – Aredian kicked out from his higher position, and the boy's head snapped back like the boot had caught his chin in a bad way.

His muscles were agonizingly tight. How many bones in the spine? How many hung over thin air, how many anchored him in place – Aredian pushed, and a few more rubbed over the wrong way of the balance. The metal bar shuddered beneath him like it was surrendering–

The reverberations of the door opening, he realized, when a new voice spoke.

"Wilfred."

It was his father, who probably could see their relative positions clearly through the office windows. Arthur gasped in a relief that was nearly childish, as much that the stern disappointed shock in the familiar tone was not aimed at him, as the expectation of rescue and safety.

Even so, it was several thundering heartbeats before Aredian let him up, and balance still a bit unsettled was once again centered over his own feet on the small square landing. As Aredian shifted sideways, back inside the observation room, Merlin came up right next to Arthur, the young man sheet-white but self-controlled, tight as his shadow as they joined the room.

"You're fired," Uther Pendragon said coldly, focused on his former head-of-security rather than his son, as Arthur and then Merlin trailed the former head of security inside the room. "But perhaps you'd like to explain yourself all the same."

Silence. Arthur's father dominated the observation room, hands on his hips to spread the tails of his black-on-black coat like wings. Behind him, Gwen's dark eyes were wide as she kept the younger female attendant, who looked ready to faint, trapped in the corner. The agent remaining in the room struggled on the tile floor in Gwaine's grip; the Texan moved with him without allowing the release, gaze flicking warily between Arthur and his father. Behind Aredian, the older female attendant, just rising from her retrieval of the dropped syringe.

Aredian was not a man of violent, impulsive action. Not really a man of words, either, but in Arthur's estimation, always glacially self-contained. Which made the rail-dangling decision unexpected - and his next reaction totally unpredictable. Arthur was mid-step, instinctively moving – leading Merlin as he'd moments earlier led Gwen – toward his father, away from Aredian, when the older man twisted violently to the far corner of the room.

Snatching the syringe from the attendant, he spun back with deadly intent.

Over his shoulder – Arthur would never forget the sight – Aredian's eyes blazed with fury as he brought his arm forward, syringe held like a stabbing knife. For him, or for his father, Arthur never knew. One choice was smarter, one choice was closer.

But it was Merlin who prevented either.


	14. Let Us Go

**Chapter 14: Let Us Go**

The gawky country boy sprang away from Arthur, his bound hands faster than thought, his entire being focused on that drugged needle in Aredian's hand, Merlin's fingers faster than sight. And both of them fell back, in nearly equal shock.

The syringe – plunger depressed to empty its dose – still stuck from Aredian's body, high toward his shoulder. Through the right breast of his own black jacket, so similar to Uther's.

Aredian's body hit the wall. The sharp intelligence and sharper rage slid from his pale eyes. His knees buckled, and no one else moved as he slid sideways. Down the wall. To the floor.

Merlin turned to Arthur, a clear edge of panic in his blue eyes. Arthur made a calming gesture – no, it wouldn't be held against him. Though he couldn't help thinking that luck – fate, destiny – had taken a pretty clear shot at Wilfred Aredian.

"Well," Arthur's father remarked, unmoving. "I guess I'll have to deal with him, later." A familiar promise that always sounded like a threat – and Arthur was again relieved it wasn't aimed for him this time.

Uther turned his head a few degrees to take in Gwaine on the floor, leaning backwards nearly horizontal – the agent on top of him, tangled in what might have been a wrestler's hold. Only, not one that Arthur had ever been taught – maybe a Texas thing? – it looked like he'd either strangle himself or break an arm if he tried to struggle.

"Let him go," Uther ordered quietly, silk over steel – a tone that always made Arthur hop to obey, but Gwaine only shifted his gaze to Arthur, and back.

"No, sir, thank you, sir," he said, his voice sharp with the strain of his hold on the agent. "I don't take orders from you. We Texans are kinda picky about things like that."

"You are employed on my base of operations, are you not?" Uther said icily.

Gwaine grinned. "Not since another pair of these fine boys was sent this morning to pick up me, no. Not since you plan to shove my friend there into your assembly line under the heading of ingredients. Gotta draw my line, sir. I quit."

Arthur, seeing they weren't getting anywhere except on his father's nerves, said quietly, "Gwaine. Please."

Gwaine met his eyes for a moment, then nodded. He released his hold and scrambled to the side, on his feet before the black-clad agent, who coughed and glared.

"Take these three into custody temporarily," Uther ordered the agent, indicating the trio of Arthur's friends. "You two ladies, get this room back under control. Arthur, I need to speak with you in private. Now."

"No," Arthur said, as respectfully as he could. His heart was thumping; he was far more intimidated by the thought of confronting his father, than he had been to challenge Aredian. But it seemed he was at a crossroads – decision time.

"Excuse me?" his father quirked one bushy white eyebrow ominously.

"No, father. I think we need to speak immediately, right now… and right here."

His father didn't explode into fury over disrespect and rebelliousness, as Arthur had expected. Instead, he sighed. "Why are you here? How did you–"

"How did I what, Father?" Arthur said, a bit nervous at his own daring – but his father's lack of temper served to fuel his own, in a slow and contained way. He'd never risked even feeling anger toward his father before. "How did I find out your secret? I'm your son, I'm meant to be learning your business inside and out, bottom to top. How long were you going to keep something like _this_–" he gestured toward the great observation window on his right – "from me?"

"Until you were ready to make the difficult but necessary decision, too," his father returned in a hard voice. "You think I wanted this? There are millions depending on us, and you have more of your grandfather's moralistic idealism than is good for you. I knew you would be upset–"

"Upset?" Arthur said incredulously, nearly forgetting their audience. "Upset doesn't begin to describe what I'm feeling. Sickened, disgusted–"

"Why?" his father interrupted. "They're washed and well-fed, protected and cared for–"

Merlin made a small, hurt noise.

"They're _people_, Dad," Arthur said softly. "This isn't right."

"It's necessary–"

"It's not," Arthur contradicted. "I've heard recently that a group of independent scientists has finally succeeded in doing what you gave up on years ago. Synthesizing the formula without the use of human blood."

"Who did you hear this from?" his father demanded, unsettled.

"A trusted source." Arthur didn't look at Gwen, who'd watched the conversation motionless but for the shift of wide eyes from one speaker to the next. Just behind his father's left elbow, but ignored by the older man.

"Ridiculous. You've been lied to. I was assured _years_ ago it was impossible…"

Arthur thought, his father wasn't as sure as he claimed. Beginning to question, to second-guess… he cringed at his father's choices, now. "It's winter," he said persuasively, moving closer now. Merlin stayed where he was, and Arthur could no longer see the agent, Gwaine, or the older female. "Demand is almost nonexistent, we have months to prove a breakthrough."

"And if it is false," Uther said; Arthur could see Gwen biting her tongue on a retort, and was grateful to her for her silence, at least in that moment. "How would you explain to millions of people, that there will be no harvest, no field grass for herd animals, no grain for fowl, because you were too squeamish to handle resources responsibly?"

"We have time now and opportunity to test it. Please, Father." No hint of relenting. Arthur added, trying to soften what would no doubt sound like a threat, "I can't agree with this. Can't ignore it, now that I know. I won't run the company like this, Father. If you and I cannot compromise, I will have to leave. I will have to…"

He couldn't even think about it logically, right now. Tell everyone who'd listen? Anyone who might help him? He couldn't physically fight his father or overthrow Leonard Wood, but even starting or supporting a rival production plant would mean at least corporate war… And a more immediate concern – he didn't know anyone, where would he go, how would he find his way, how would he survive from one meal to the next? It occurred to him that Merlin was more accomplished than he, in this regard.

"If you keep me here and uninvolved, it will have to be by force." Arthur squared his shoulders.

His father's heavy lined face gave away nothing of his thoughts or emotions, but Arthur knew he was considering options – of Arthur going public in a rogue way, of Arthur under house arrest for years… "And if you stayed?"

"No more snagger," Arthur said. Whatever else was to happen or change, that was first. "No more blood."

"You'd rehabilitate these people and simply – turn them loose?" A hint of condescension, but Arthur was aware it wouldn't be as easy as that. _Years_ had been stolen from these people.

"No, not simply. With fair recompense – _fair_," he emphasized, aware that several people had almost interrupted, for various reasons. He turned to look around the circle of others, then rested his eyes a moment on Gwen, whose eyes were shining with quiet pride, before looking to his father again. "Whatever each one needs or wants. Money, transportation, housing…"

"And what of the rumors?" his father pressed impassively. "What of our opposition from violent insurrectionists who protest our monopoly, and political groups who look for a reason to confiscate everything, and turn this enterprise into another governmental function, overpriced and inefficient?" And now, there was emotion. Over the business, over control. Not the people.

"We publish the formula," Arthur proposed, speaking as the idea occurred – but caught Gwen's nod of vigorous approval. Without the need for the blood, there was no need to keep this detail secret from both parties, either. "Take the competition if and when it arises, adjust our costs – I don't know, do our best."

"Ha!" his father barked out. "You speak of radical changes, Arthur, of undermining the stability of our lives and tearing apart the fabric of our very world, and all you can say is, _we'll do our best_?"

"We'll have help," Arthur said. Wildly hoping it was the truth. He trusted Gwen in an overhauled Production department, he trusted Gwaine in a position in Security, and he trusted Merlin to deal gently and wisely with his recovering people.

"Help," his father repeated bitterly. "There is no _help_. You can never trust anyone but yourself."

Arthur heard the echo of Aredian's words, _ungrateful whelp_. He knew he'd disappointed his father, deeply and utterly, and it _hurt_… but instead of heavy depression in his heart, he felt instead an empty sort of freedom. Without his father's leadership, he had no standard to live up to, no guideline to be followed absolutely. Lots of mistakes to be made, he was afraid. Lots of stumbling, when he wasn't walking in someone else's footsteps…

But, no regret. Arthur said to his father, "Do you really believe that? You don't trust me? What about when I'm in charge of Camelot?"

His father stared at him, then looked at each person in the room for some moments. The two female attendants – one still terrified, one wary – the agent, unsure of his loyalties in the face of such an earth-shifting decision that he had no say in. Gwen in her scientists' white smock, Gwaine the incorrigible curly-haired Texan, Merlin the green-knight, outwardly shy and inwardly bold.

Then Aredian stirred and they both looked at him, before Arthur's father turned his gaze back on _him_. "I cannot order your mind, your opinions, you're too old for that. I cannot fight you. I will not confine you."

Arthur took a deep breath. "What about cooperation? Let me try this alternative?"

"And if it is a dead end?" his father said, without emotion, but Arthur glimpsed his father's fear – that fear of being out of control while the world collapsed around him.

He wondered if his father would keep track of the green-knights, to bring them in again in the event of the failure of the replacement formula – or let the company disintegrate and retire with a suitcase of gold and Arthur's mother. See how far they could get on a tank of gas and assumed names.

Arthur looked at Merlin, then back at his father. "Give me a chance to prove that, before we start talking contingency plans?"

For a moment more, his father studied him. Then, acquiesced with a single tilt of his head. For a moment more, Arthur felt the weight of everyone's gaze, and fumbled for his first decision.

"G- um, Miss Abrams, please oversee the disposal of all snagger in the building – on the entire post, if anyone has knowledge of supplies elsewhere. And cancel whatever standing order there might be, for more. You two–" he nailed the two attendants with a stern glare – "will take orders from – oh, unlock him, Agent, immediately please – Mr… ah–"

"Just Merlin," the boy said hastily, mostly hiding the fact that he felt overwhelmed, as he stretched his cuffs to the key the agent produced.

"In the initial recovery and care for all these people," Arthur continued. "Until I can put another team in place. Merlin, you can handle that?"

Blue eyes met his, as the manacles clicked free of his wrists, and Merlin rubbed them momentarily. "Yes."

There was confidence, and dedication, that Arthur saw, and knew that for the country boy, things really were just that simple. Take care of his people, doing whatever it took, being the man that was needed. For a moment Arthur envied Merlin. He wasn't sure he'd properly valued the safety and security of a position taking orders, rather than giving them, before now, and wondered if it was the same for everyone, growing up – realizing that the freedom to make decisions for oneself wasn't as desirable as it seemed when someone else still gave directions. Still, his father said nothing.

"Agent–" Uther said, leadingly.

"Daniels, sir," the man responded.

"Place Mr. Aredian under arrest," Uther ordered. Daniels knelt to place Merlin's cuffs around Aredian's wrists, and the older man moved sluggishly against the unwelcome contact. Uther added, "I'm going to need a new Head of Security, it seems."

Another moment of awkward silence. Arthur wondered whether he wasn't very good at this, or just not yet; he ventured, "I would suggest promoting one of his officers that you trust… or, say, why not Marco?" Remembering the middle-aged father of five that his three friends roomed with in the residential district, he turned to Gwaine to gauge his friend's reaction.

"He doesn't want it," Gwaine told him.

Arthur lifted his eyebrows between his friend and his father. "That's why he'd be perfect for it. And maybe you – ah, maybe Mr. Southerland could be his assistant."

He didn't realize he was holding his breath, until his father nodded slowly. "It's a thought. For now, maybe Mr. Southerland can assist Agent Daniels in escorting Mr. Aredian to a cell."

"And check on the other agent in the stairwell," Arthur added.

"Dale," Daniels said, looking up – and Arthur was relieved to see that the agent seemed appreciative of Arthur's recollection of his partner.

"Yeah, sure." Gwaine dragged his fingers through his longish hair, to tie it back at his nape.

"If things are well in hand here," Uther commented, exactly as he'd done reviewing Arthur's grade-card every school quarter. "You'll excuse me…" He turned, stepping to the door, and passed through it, at a stately, respectable pace.

Arthur felt compelled to follow, though he was distracted by the second agent in the stairwell, who'd drawn bruised limbs back into the corner of the first landing where he rested, out of the senior Pendragon's way. Arthur's father spared him an appraising glance, but continued on his way unhesitating; neither man spoke.

"Are you all right?" Arthur asked Dale, who nodded but didn't get up.

"Yes, sir."

"Perhaps you could ride along with Agent Daniels," he suggested. "Mr. Aredian is under arrest, and Mr. Southerland is not. And I'm sure you could then be taken to the medical clinic, if need be."

The agent – halfway from fifty to sixty years of age, maybe – had his jaw set stolidly against surprise and pain both, but his eyes were wide. Even so, he gave Arthur a firm nod.

And Arthur chased his father, clattering down the concrete stairs two at a time, yet unwilling to call out. Not til they reached the ground level, and Uther exited the building nearly ten yards ahead of him, heading for his private car, where his driver waited. Arthur realized, his father had come to Production knowing that Arthur knew. And he'd left his driver – also a trained member of the security force – behind.

"Father!" he called then, and Uther turned, with the barest hint of impatience. Arthur looked into his father's dark eyes, and the thought struck him, this man might be happier, out from under part of the burden of responsibility. And maybe he'd keep his guilt with him and submerge it in denial or self-loathing… but maybe, he'd find peace. Forgiveness. Eventually.

"Thank you," he said, before he knew he intended to speak. "For–" For making him learn every aspect of the business. For teaching him how to run it. For not making their confrontation and disagreement any worse. "Everything, I guess."

Uther was silent a moment. "You remind me of my father, you know. He was a dreamer – but practical, also. And he managed to succeed – and to flourish. It may be that you will do the same…"

Arthur stood dumbly as his father took the step between them, and held out his hand. He'd never shaken his father's hand before, man to man. It felt odd – a exhilarating freedom from childhood mixed with an apprehension of adulthood. And then, Uther put a hand on his shoulder in a way that was at least caring, if not affectionate.

"All I can say is… Good luck."

Arthur watched his father's driver escort him to the comfortable backseat, close both doors, and shift the idling engine to drive away. As the scent of exhaust drifted away on the chill breeze, the first tiny flurries of the season began dancing down.

Death was a part of life. One thing ended and another began; winter was just as necessary as spring, which was always certain to follow. But it seemed, for today at least, though the cycle of ends and beginnings still moved, that end was not yet come. And there were things to be done. Arthur turned to go back inside.

…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

Gwaine climbed the stairs to the fifth floor of Production, feeling the weariness of the last two weeks in each and every one of his muscles – and a few he hadn't before realized he possessed. Even a good night's sleep didn't fully ease that, anymore – it was only midmorning.

It had been worth it, though, the last two weeks. Marco felt the same; Gwaine saw as much mixed with the exhaustion apparent in the older man's expression and bearing. Marco adjusting to and owning the new position as Head of Security, Gwaine in a junior position, but fielding the reactions of that department at least, as the news filtered out, why Uther Pendragon had turned Production over to his son. Green-knights. Prisoners and snagger and _changes_.

Gwaine knocked on the door at the top of the stair – still no handle on this side – and a moment later the young female attendant, Carol-anne, opened the door. He opened his mouth to give his name as his claim to the right to enter, but she recognized him and held the door open still further.

"Come in," she said. "Gwen and Merlin are down in the great-room."

"Thanks." Gwaine craned his neck to peer through the observation window as he strode through the small room, but saw nothing from the high angle. Which was all right, there was only three – four? no, three, unless his count was off – of the green-knights left.

He saw Gwen first, at the bottom of the stair, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed over her white smock, her attention on – Gwaine glanced over the rail as he started down – the group of four in the center of the green carpet.

Cross-legged, all, like overgrown and awkward children. An angular young woman with short dark hair, combed and left hanging about her face. A saggy bald man with skin a shade similar to the white walls, a skinny young man whose face looked crooked, for some reason. Blank-eyed as they faced Merlin, who had his back to Gwen, leaning forward and speaking into the group too softly to be heard, looking from one face to the next without discernible reaction.

Gwen glanced up as Gwaine neared the bottom of the stair, but looked back at Merlin and his companions without speaking; Merlin's goatskin bag leaned against the wall also at her feet.

Gwaine didn't have to say, _still nothing._

Arthur hadn't been able to make good on his promise, no more snagger. There were twenty-three green-knights in residence, and the process of detoxification more complicated than any of them expected, because of the long periods of use. Merlin had moved in with them, sleeping and eating with them, helping to treat – and clean up after – physical symptoms. Gwaine himself had only been a couple of times, when his other duties allowed, and knew that Gwen had done the same. And Arthur.

The younger Mr. Pendragon had reassigned people from other sections of Production, to help. And maybe their initial shock, their appointed hands-on experience, would help to spread the word of truth and change. He'd also appropriated a pair of trainees from the health clinic on base, and Gwaine gathered that they had been invaluable.

The times Gwaine had been working up here, people had shouted. People huddled and rocked, people stared into space, people wept. Some went placidly about daily routines, playing childlike with the toys and books left for their diversion. Once the sedative was fully out of each green-knight's system, Arthur had addressed them. Gwaine and Marco had been prepared to prevent physical violence, though it hadn't been necessary; he watched Arthur tell the story, make a confession not his own, give assurances as best he could about the future.

There had been tears streaming down Arthur's face when he finally broke away. And Merlin had gone after him for a private comfort and representative absolution.

It helped, a bit, when Gwen had come with an announcement of her own – the success of the initial tests of the replacement component. Though Gwaine had privately thought, for them at least, _too little too late_ might apply to some of them.

Half of them – Gwaine and Marco kept the count, and the record – had left. Some together, some alone. Some with volunteer escorts, some with Camelot coin in their pockets. Two with fire in their eyes and hatred in their hearts and a blanket refusal of anything to do with the company – Gwaine and Marco had discussed them, and possibilities, but those two had bothered Merlin. Maybe even more than these three.

The other half had stayed. Some of those were waiting to hear if they had family to go to, elsewhere, some of them had simply chosen to relocate to other quarters and other jobs, content with shelter and wages – Marco and Gwaine had done their best to see to it that their secret followed them, theirs to tell if they chose.

These three needed – a tentative diagnosis – further support to overcome their trauma. If it could be done; Gwaine wondered about permanent damage, but had never said so to Merlin. He hoped no one else had, either, at least not yet. They'd recovered physically, but mentally maybe never would. He also thought, Pendragon senior did not need to worry that they would prove any kind of competition as far as land-tending went. If they could continue to manufacture fertilizer in similar quantities without the blood component, he didn't think any of these thirty-two had any interest in making their talents public. Ever.

Merlin straightened then and leaned back, hands on his thighs, before turning and gathering his long legs underneath him. His dark eyebrows rose in an expression of surprise to see Gwaine, as if he hadn't heard him come down the stairs.

"You've done really well," Gwen said without preamble as he came to them, with an almost aggressive note in her voice, as if she wanted to preclude any argument he might counter with. "We're all so proud of you." She pushed away from the wall to squeeze his ribs in a tight hug – he looked at Gwaine astonished, but his eyes shone with unshed tears as he closed his arms around her in turn. "We'll take care of them, and you take care of you, hear? Go hibernate – but be sure to come out in the spring."

Gwaine grinned at his young friend's expression as she released him, and surprised Merlin still further by wrapping his own arms around the bony frame and slapping his back gently. "If you don't come back on your own," he said, a light-hearted warning and a promise, "I'll come get you, by horse or by vehicle, whatever I can finagle."

"Whatever you can steal, you mean," Gwen murmured, and Gwaine pretended affront for a moment.

"You've got everything packed?" he added. For answer Merlin lifted the goatskin bag to his shoulder, and Gwaine steered him to the stairs. "Arthur said he'd have someone take you at least to the gate, so…"

Down the stairwell, Gwaine – with Gwen's help – kept up a steady but undemanding flow of inconsequential conversation. Saying without saying, _we care about you and we'll miss you_. And Gwaine guessed, Merlin's small and silent grins said the same thing.

Outside, it was Gwaine's turn to be surprised. Arthur himself waited by one of Security's jeeps, with a driver Gwaine recognized but couldn't yet put a name to, as short as his time in the department had been. Arthur had been watching for them; as soon as they emerged, he directed one last comment to the driver, then approached the three of them, breathing into his hands to warm them in a self-conscious way.

Gwen tucked her hands under her arms – Gwaine thought about offering his deer-hide jacket, just to get that look from Arthur again, maybe spur him along in his developing interest for the young scientist – and Merlin put his pack down to tug a fur-lined cap down over his black hair and ears, mittens over his hands.

"So this is goodbye," Arthur said. "You sure you don't need anything else? Apart from a ride to the gate?" Something about the way he said it made Gwaine suspect that he'd argued with his father to provide Merlin a ride all the way home; probably Uther had refused to assist the young man, except to get him off the fort's land.

"I'm set," Merlin answered with a smile.

Arthur glanced at Gwen and Gwaine, shifted half a step closer to Merlin. "You know, I'm really, really sor-"

"Please don't," Merlin said, quickly but with disarming simplicity. "You didn't know. And, you've done so much for me – for us."

Arthur ducked his head as if to acknowledge – or to escape it. Gwaine privately thought it was going to take the youngest Pendragon a while to lose the familial guilt he felt, over what the company had done.

"Next spring," he said, the troubled wrinkle between his brows remaining. He shot another look at Gwen and Gwaine – who almost reassured him teasingly, he'd already offered to go after their friend, but it seemed Arthur had something different on his mind. "If you don't… I mean, if you can't… I would understand, if…"

Merlin surprised them all, sliding his mittens around Arthur's upper arms for a quick self-conscious embrace. He said, pulling away again, "I'll see you."

Shy glance included all three of them, but Gwaine thought he was not alone in hearing the promise made to Arthur, specifically. Merlin's smile twitched again, and he bent for his pack before loping for the jeep.

"It's going to be a long winter," Gwen observed wistfully, watching him go.

"I'm sure we'll find something to do," Gwaine said dryly, raising an eyebrow at the way Arthur stood to break the wind for her.

Arthur raised a warning eyebrow, but only grunted a reminder of exactly how busy they all would be.

And Merlin raised his hand in final salute.

…..*….. Epilogue …..*…..

Merlin's breath huffed in white clouds before his face as his boots crunched through the thin layer of white on the ground. Low crusty drifts and frosted fallen leaves – between the boots and the season, he didn't feel the land's pull on his blood. It was content now to rest until spring.

He hooked the thumbs of his mittens through the straps of the goatskin pack – repaired by Marco's wife – and lifted his head to judge, distance to the west ridge, and time it would take him to reach the cabin. Mid-afternoon, maybe. He'd made good time. Walking had proved conducive to thinking, but he'd had hours and hours of solitude now, and had mostly contented himself to let thoughts lie til spring, too. He was just looking forward to getting home, now.

Merlin glanced up the track at the houses and shops of Yelder's Hollow, coming into view a half-mile off, yet. He had the choice, now, whether to angle to the left up to the ridge, keeping to the trees – far back, as there wasn't foliage anymore to conceal him. Or to walk down the main street through the town, before taking Gaius's path to his cabin.

It was cold. Faster to go straight through, and maybe no one would bother staring or wondering – or recognizing? maybe next to impossible, given the way he was dressed against the weather.

But he thought, if he hid now, he might not have the courage to change that habit, later. And with everything he'd been through after leaving, if he could not show himself to Yelder's Hollow… could he find the courage to return to show himself to the whole of Leonard Wood?

Merlin lengthened his stride, up the track. Over the snow-dusted and broken concrete and gravel, past the first square buildings and houses.

There were few people, bundled as he was against the weather, and hurrying about chores and errands, to return to the fire-warmed interiors of shops and homes. Some lifted a hand in greeting swift, silent, and impersonal. Two he caught looking at him again, as if puzzled that they couldn't immediately identify him - but no one called out and he didn't slow.

Until he came to the general store.

Covered porch and glassed windows and smoke puffing and curling from the stovepipe over the wood-shingled roof. He didn't intend on stopping, but someone came out as he was passing, closed the door and turned. He caught her gaze – short and slight, even in a battered sheepskin jacket that was… somehow familiar? He was distracted from the thought by the crimson knit cap low over her eyes, but the long dark curls over the coat's woolly lapel teased a different memory.

Her eyes widened in recognition, too. "Merlin?"

The next moment she bounded forward, shooting one arm around his middle beneath the goatskin pack on his back, cuddling him and the canvas bag of supplies she held in the crook of her other arm. He distinctly felt a can against his ribs, she squeezed so hard. Almost it distracted him from the excited-attracted feeling in the pit of his stomach, daring to hug her in return.

"Freya," he said, his smile stretching cheeks that were chilled and dry from the cold. "You made it. You're still here."

She tipped her face up, smiling widely even as two tears made tracks down her cheeks, leaving a faint white glistening residue in the cold. "Course I did," she said. "But you – I thought I might never see you again! How far did you get? Come on, walk while we talk – I'm _not_ waiting til we get back to the cabin to hear your story, you'll have to tell it again, but I'm also not going to stand here freezing! Gaius will be so happy – he wouldn't come right out and say it, even when I teased, but I know he missed you and worried! And – and we have another guest, just so you know."

He laughed, his heart swelling in his chest – a glad pain, and one he didn't mind choking him a little - allowing her to pull him along. She was talkative when she was happy; he was so glad Yelder's Hollow and Gaius seemed to agree with her. He hoped she could make it a home; she was too young to try to make her own way in the world, yet.

"Maybe he doesn't have room for me, then," he said lightly, taking the bag of supplies from her, as his own bag over his shoulder left his hands free. She shook his arm by the sleeve, chastising him without taking him seriously.

"Spill," she told him. "How far, before you decided to come back? And where did you leave Gwaine?"

"All the way," he said. "Fort Leonard Wood and Camelot – Gwaine's there for the winter." He decided to tell her later, the truth about the snagger her father had been killed trying to figure out.

She ducked her head to watch the rougher footing of the trail as they began to leave the town behind. "And your dad? What did you find out about him?"

Merlin sighed. "Long story. I mean, about what he was doing there, and why. Why my mother never told me… But, he wasn't there. I guess maybe he left? a couple of weeks before I left here." Escaped, rather, but then he'd have to explain why an escape was necessary, and… just, not right now. That was a story he'd tell only once.

She hummed in interest and sympathy. "So he could be – anywhere, really."

Merlin shifted the pack on his back – that was also something he'd have to talk to Gaius about again. "Depends on if he knew or guessed where my mother might have gone… What about you, though? How do you like it here – it's great, right? Better in the spring, you'll see." He glanced sideways at her. "If you stay…"

"Haven't got anywhere else to be." She shrugged. "Gaius has books – and he says you make the holler beautiful."

"Not me," he said, but a smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. "I'm just the gardener. I use what I've got on what's already there."

She quirked a skeptical eyebrow, but didn't argue. And when the cabin came into view, she raised her voice to hail the bundled figure moving around the near corner. Merlin grinned; he himself had not ever announced his presence so, preferring to come and go quietly.

"Gaius! See what I picked up down at the store! We've got room for one more, don't we?" To Merlin she added dryly, "What does _reclusive_ mean again?"

"Merlin!" Gaius called, his wide smile visible immediately. Hustling down to them, he ignored Freya to grip the upper arms of Merlin's coat and shake him. "It's so good to see you, boy. You don't know how I worried for you, going into that lion's den – I was afraid they'd eat you up and spit out the bones! What happened?"

Merlin smiled into his old friend's eyes, glistening with unshed tears; he felt the same, to be home. "So much," he said. "Me and Gwaine – she told you about Gwaine?"

"Yeah," Freya interjected, shifting her canvas bag of supplies.

"Went to Leonard Wood. Found out about why my mother left, and the rest of the green-knights…"

Gaius nodded impatiently; there was no surprise on his face – which made Merlin pause. "But how did you get out of there? They just never found you out?"

"They did," Merlin said, and horror widened both pairs of eyes on him. "But Arthur Pendragon is a better man than his father. He's making _changes_."

"What about the rest, then?" Freya demanded. She didn't seem surprised to hear about _more_, either. "What happened to them?"

"Pendragon senior turned some control of the company over to Arthur, and he let the green-knights go," Merlin said. Why weren't they more shocked? "A friend of ours, Gwen, is a scientist, they've been working on duplicating the formula for the fertilizer…"

"Breaking the monopoly," Gaius breathed.

"Maybe, but…" Merlin cocked his head. "You're… not surprised to hear, any of that."

"Someone came, after you left," Gaius told him, with an odd look he wasn't sure he'd ever seen on the old man's face – something like wary sympathy. "With news of Camelot Production and the green-knights."

"Who?" Merlin asked, bewildered. No one on Leonard Wood even knew, unless…

"You remember those two agents were looking for a fugitive?" Gaius said gently, but a tentative smile threatened. Freya hugged the sack of supplies from the store back out of his arm, as the old man put one hand on Merlin's shoulder.

"Yes," Merlin said dazedly, and distantly felt Freya grip his hand through both their mittens. "Peter Balinor. Um. My father. Do you mean…"

Freya bounced on her toes in spite of boots and her burden, grinning also. "He's here. Came a little after I did – took a roundabout way in case they were tracking him. He was all for setting out after you, but he wasn't _well_, and–"

Merlin yanked his gaze back from a fruitless scan of the area, and Gaius answered the unspoken question immediately. "He's fine. Getting health and strength back, is all."

"Uh… where–" Merlin stuttered. _Father_.

"Out by your mother's grave." Gaius kept his hands on the shoulder strap of the goatskin pack as Merlin turned, and he left it to the old man. Freya didn't follow him either, and he was glad of that – and then nervous to be on his own, for this.

Father. The green-knight who escaped.

Merlin's every step felt clumsy and numb, leaving the cabin he considered home behind again without even entering it. He thought of the pair that had left Camelot _angry_ – of the three that hadn't left at all. He thought of Arthur and Uther Pendragon, so different and so disappointed in each other, in such an important and irreplaceable relationship.

He saw him through the trees. Nondescript figure in bulky coat and fur-lined hat jammed low. Shoulders slumped, gazing down at the small carved stone Gaius had fashioned and placed so long ago, brushed clear of snow.

Merlin almost hated to intrude. He had very little idea of what the marriage sort of love was like, but – he could imagine, living in that fifth-floor hell, finally breaking free and making his way here… only to find that his wife had been gone for years, where he couldn't follow.

A stray twig under his boot decided the matter, and the older man turned. Short dark beard, eyes wary – probably because he wasn't Gaius or Freya. But, clear and intelligent and _aware_, and some tension Merlin hadn't realized clearly til that moment, eased.

He cleared his throat and offered, "When I was young. She always told me… she lost my father."

Peter Balinor straightened. "You're Merlin." He nodded, feeling a lump in his throat that hurt, but also the impulse to grin or laugh – but he was too uncertain to do either. "You know who I am."

He ducked his head again, and the other man approached, slowly. Merlin saw Balinor's eyes were the same mix of light and dark blue that his were.

"Lands' sake, boy, you grew tall," Balinor said shakily.

Merlin recognized that he felt awkward, to address a son grown that he'd last seen as a little child. He felt an irrational urge to apologize for that.

"I'm sorry," Balinor said, startling him. "About your mother. And that I – wasn't here. I missed so much – we have a lot to talk about."

Had Gaius told him where Merlin had gone? Had his father told them, how he'd gotten away from Production and Leonard Wood? "We have all winter," he said, letting his smile free. "Father. Or – dad?"

Fine lines deepened around Balinor's eyes, squinted in happiness, but shining with tears. "You used to say, Da-da. Don't suppose that'll do anymore, so – whatever you like."

Merlin decided to decide later, what fit. "My friends hugged me when I left Leonard Wood," he said – and saw instant questions and concerns spring up in his father's expression. "And Gaius and Freya did the same just now, so…" He raised his arms tentatively, preparing himself to understand if Balinor wasn't ready for that, after his ordeal, or simply wasn't that sort of man.

Balinor only hesitated a moment, before accepting and returning the embrace. And it felt good; even though they were still strangers, yet they were kin. More would come, and this was good for now. He felt safe in his father's arms.

"You're home now, boy," Balinor said, sounding close to tears. "We're home."

Merlin smiled into the collar of his father's coat.

Exactly so.

**A/N: And, that's it – though I never really write 'The End'… **

**I'm not planning to start another WIP til June and school's out, just FYI, but it'll probably be the time travel one people voted on, Past Faults and Future Perils. I might simultaneously upload it to AO3 in contemplation of moving to that site for future endeavors – but we'll see how it goes.**

**Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed!**


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